Ah, voting day. The day that democracy lives and dies for, then we sit back and watch what happens. Or so it seems.

Nowadays young people don’t vote and old people do; however, youth of today are more engaged politically than previous generations in non-traditional ways. Voting is merely one thing about being political for today’s more socially-aware youth and for many it’s more important to be active in-between elections than just at election time. The problem with that thinking is that some youth don’t even vote because they feel like their vote won’t do anything, so they direct their political energy elsewhere, say volunteering at Greenpeace.

That’s fine, but you still need to vote.

Voting allows to send a message beyond just who you want to run the country this time. Thanks to some fancy Canadian election laws each vote gives $1.25 to the party you voted for. That means that if you vote for the NDP this time you are showing support for them AND helping them fight for the next election by raising their coffers. Obviously this works only for registered Canadian political parties so voting for an independent won’t get them any money.

So go vote and support who you’d like to see run this country.

Some more info on voting from my Things Are Good post:

Yes, it ’s finally here! All Things Are Good Canadian readers need to make sure they vote today. If you don’t know where exactly to vote check out elections.ca. It’s not a difficult task to vote since you don’t even need to be registered.

Remember that the most important thing you do today (if not this year) is to vote for the environment.