is no reason to deny young
people their rights.

The fight for those rights

-- begins with the right to
vote.

s the International Year of the Youth

came to a close, Canada’s young people

~ remained the only citizens of Canada

(besides federal judges, those in mental institu-

tions, or who are disqualified for illegal or

corrupt. election practices) still legally barred

from exercising their constitutional and demo-
cratic rights.

 

 

Even the 3000 Quebec prisoners received the
right to vote last month on a constitutional
challenge, setting a precedent for the rest of
Canada’s prison population.

 

by lan Hunter

 

The Canadian constitution says, ‘‘every citizen
of Canada has the right to vote in an election of
members of the House of Commons or of a
Legislative Assembly and to be qualified for
membership therein.”

Young people, those under the age of 18
federally (19 in provincial elections) are not
considered full citizens of this country. They are,
in effect, non-persons: without the same min-
imum wage laws, recreational freedom, legal
rights or mobility rights which those the law

considers mature have.

The laws only reflect society’s attitude and
what these laws say about society is that the
adult population does not respect underage
people as they now do women, blacks, native
Indians and others who have been the the same
segregated state youth are in now, but who
fought to get out of it.

Their fight began with getting the right to
vote. With voting comes power and influence.
With that you get representation, respect, and
the impetus for change. The situation of young
people in Canada, and around the world, can be

 

 

“When you're older’

 

 

compared to the blacks in South Africa
the majority black and coloured populat
not considered responsible, intelligent or
ed enough to carry such a great responsil
voting for leaders.

The argument for apartheid is that u
African population achieves higher sta
political power should remain in Et
hands.

The universal apartheid that is yc
maintained with remarkably similar argun
those which kept women from voting in
until the 1920’s, the non-white imi
population from voting until the 1940's, ,
native Indian population from getting tk
chise until the 1960's.

The argument that kept women from
was, according to Susan Jackel in Mel
new Canadian Encyclopedia, that ‘‘mo
century Canadians, women as well a:
believed that the sexes had been assig
‘separate spheres’ by natural and divin
that overrode mere man-made laws’’.

The old saying that children should t
and not heard goes along with the idea o
a woman’s place is.

The non-whites couldn’t vote because
thought they couldn’t be trusted. A
Indians weren’t considered Canadians: thi
mere wards of'the state. ts

This time, instead of the argument:
racist or sexist, they are ageist.

geism may not be in your diction:

but looking at the other two maji

can give revealing clues ar to wl
discrimination is.

According to Webster’s, racism is
program or practice of racial discrim
segregation, persecution, and domination
on racialism.’’ Sexism is ‘‘the economic
ation and social domination of one sex
other.’’

Before women got the vote, and discrin
of women was openly discussed, it was c
ed a man’s world. Before coloured people
vote and laws were in place to protect nor
and women from discrimination, it was c
ed a white man’s world.

The way youth are now blatantly e
from the political process, economically
ed, kept in authoritarian indoctrination
called schools and segregated, by lav
mingling with the adult population free
social basis, shows that it is an adult’s w

Poverty, unemployment and underemp)
are rampant among youth. This  situ<
exploited by adults seeking cheap, unque:
labourers and a dormant population of li
people.

The frustration young people have fror
in this exploitive, powerless position cor
in the sense of fatalism young people hav