Every party claims to be building a better future for our children. And every voter will find reasons for believing their party of choice is the best for their children.
Maybe you鈥檙e a social conservative worried about what you see as the decline in moral values; maybe you鈥檙e an environmentalist worried about climate change; maybe you鈥檙e concerned about government debt and spending.
You鈥檒l vote for the party you think represents your interests and those of your children.
But that opinion is still your opinion and your vote. Not your kid鈥檚.
Gordon Gibson wrote a thought-provoking column for the 91原创 Sun recently, arguing that parents should be able to cast extra votes on behalf of their children. Although he uses the phrase 鈥渁 modest proposal,鈥� the idea isn鈥檛 obviously satire and it shouldn鈥檛 be dismissed out of hand. But I don鈥檛 think it would work as intended.
For one thing, it wouldn鈥檛 鈥渃hange the political balance significantly in favour of kids,鈥� as Gibson suggests. It would change the balance in favour of parents.
It strikes me as illogical and even undemocratic to divorce the idea of 鈥渁 vote鈥� from the idea of 鈥渁 political opinion.鈥� If society has decided you aren鈥檛 old enough to evaluate policies, it has decided you aren鈥檛 old enough to vote. By definition, no one can decide how another person will vote. A vote is a decision.
Gibson argues that the needs of children outweigh their political clout, that changing demographics will mean policies to benefit the elderly will get more attention. But families aren鈥檛 divided into people-with-kids and people-with-grandparents. Most of us have young people in our lives we care about, whether they鈥檙e our own kids or not.
Gibson mentions early-childhood education as an example of the kind of policy that might get short shrift because kids can鈥檛 vote. I鈥檓 pretty sure my three-year-old has no opinion on whether his parents or the state should pay the preschool bill (although he might have an opinion on whether Kit-Kats constitute a main course). And how can I assume I know what he鈥檒l think about early childhood education, or any other policy, once he grows up? How can I even begin to imagine the man that my son will be in the Canada of 2028, and then try to apply that imagined future man鈥檚 political ideas retroactively to the policy debates of 2013?
I can鈥檛. So they can only be my decisions, my votes, not his.
Besides, we can鈥檛 assume that asking parents to consider their children at the ballot box would translate into more votes for state-subsidized early-childhood education.
I know plenty of parents who don鈥檛 believe in such policies.
I鈥檓 pretty sure non-parents are already making the choices they think are best for Canada鈥檚 future. But even if parents are thinking about their kids when they mark an X, it鈥檚 wrong to assume that would shift the balance in any coherent way toward a desired policy direction or party. It would just give more weight to the voters who had the most kids.
At the level of principle, the argument in favour of Gibson鈥檚 proposal is that kids are citizens who deserve representation. But how is imposing a vote on a kid giving him or her any more representation?
I don鈥檛 want an extra vote just because I happened to procreate, thanks very much. The job came with new responsibilities enough. I just want to raise a child who鈥檚 wiser and better than I am, so that 15 years from now, when his first election day comes, he鈥檒l be equipped to make that decision on his own.
