Abstract

I argue that Canada's federal statutory voting age should be reduced from 18 to 16. The argument is developed through three concurrent fields of research: normative political theory, comparative politics, and constitutional theory. The proposed institutional change would be consistent with the evolutionary nature of the federal franchise since late teenagers, through the concurrent processes of mobilizations–concessions, and constitutional litigation, could extend it as other social groups did. A federal voting age of 16 in Canada would not lead to habitual non-voting, as was demonstrated by the outcome of the lowering of the minimum voting age to 16 in Scotland in 2015. The reduction of the minimum voting age to 16 would also resolve the unjustifiable inconsistency between the federal disenfranchisement of 16- and 17-year-olds and their democratic and equality rights, as protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (through section 3 and subsection 15[1]). The analysis of the constitutionality of section 3 of the Canada Elections Act is further substantiated by references to New Zealand`s judicial treatment of the disenfranchisement of 16- and 17-year olds and the transnational discourse concerning the disenfranchisement of persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities, who are excluded from suffrage based on political immaturity in the same manner as late teenagers.