Are We Ready To Vote?

Though I am not very involved in Canadian politics, I do hear about the occasional important election in Ontario or even Canada. Since I can remember, my parents been supportive of the Liberal Party, with the earliest person I know that they supported being Jean Chretien.

These past elections didn't really affect me in the same sense that they affected my parents. When these elections came around, parents were likely thinking about which party would lower taxes, lower tuition rates (since now that I'm in my first year of university, tuition rates actually matter to my parents) and possibly better health care. On other hand for myself and my friends, some of us were actually thinking about voting, since many of us, not including myself, were turning 18, the legal voting age to vote here.

To adults, the generation associated with my age group is likely known to be very tech-savvy and extremely lazy. We spend most of our time on our butts instant messaging friends, going to the movies and other otherwise pointless activities. But because we're such a large group of people, and in the case of the election, we're such a large group of potential voters, they need to find a way to motivate us to vote. This is where several different forms of communication, such as public or mass come into play.

I went on Youtube and simply searched for Liberal Party of Canada Advertisements. I came up with this simple 30 second one: http://youtube.com/watch?v=zFdeO7bE70E. In my opinion, it was to the point and was basically just a few people stating why they were voting for the Liberal party. What was the problem with this ad? It was boring, at least to someone my age. It is important to make advertisements that can be targeted at different age groups, including teenagers. Quite frankly, we do not care about having taxes cut, because the majority of us don't realise how much of an impact taxes have on us. Why not have advertisements that talk about having tuition fees cut or maybe a new math curriculum?

A few weeks ago a politician representing the area that McMaster inhabits of Hamilton came into our communications class, either to convince us to vote, to convince us to vote for him or possibly both. This is when my friends and I asked ourselves this question: Are we ready to vote? I think at our age, we're still quite naive, and if someone much older and experienced than us, especially a politician, tells us to vote for them for such and such reasons, I think we would do it.

In conclusion, I truly know nothing about politics and until I feel I reach the point where I mature quite a bit, I don't plan on caring too much.