The message from musicians and politicians at the Rush the Vote rally Saturday afternoon was clear: the votes of Canadian youth matter.

“It’s a given that the youth are the future,” said R&B singer Glenn Lewis. “We just came together for the love of good music and for solidifying the greater future.”

The event, held downtown at Dundas Square, was organized to increase political awareness and voter turnout amongst 18 to 30 year-olds. Only 26 per cent of that age bracket voted in the last federal election.

When Ryan Malcolm, the Canadian Idol winner, performed just after 2 p.m., there were only about 100 people watching. When Glenn Lewis closed the show around 6 p.m., the crowd rose to over 1000.

Paul Green, the organizer of Rush the Vote, said the event was not a forum for candidates to campaign. “We didn?t want to make this a political thing. It’s non-partisan.”

Saukrates however didn’t withhold whom he was voting for. The rapper told the crowd that the NDP started his career with a project they initiated to encourage the arts.

“It was the NDP government who did it. Hopefully we can get them back in.”

None of the candidates from the upcoming provincial election and few from the municipal elections showed up, but representatives from the parties set up tables and handed out information.

Toronto mayoral candidate Barbara Hall watched from the audience as Choclair rapped onstage. She feels more needs to be done to get the young voters to the polls.

“I think there’s the opportunity to build on this,” she said. “It’s part of a lot of things that all of us need to do to educate people about voting. Youth have an incredible amount of power but they don’t always use it.”

Touch, a member of the R&B group In Essence, used to help his mother with her campaigning job, but didn’t understand the importance of voting.

“I never knew that I had to go to one of those polls and drop my ballet in and that would make a difference,” he said. “Becoming older and learning that as young as I am, politicians do hear it. Everything makes a difference.”

He would have started to vote at a younger age had there been an event like Rush the Vote.

“We never had anything like this back in the day. I was never exposed to something like this, so I would have never known [to vote].”

Diana Linton, a fourth-year Architecture student at Ryerson University came to hear about the important issues.

“I know how hard it is [to pay tuition fees] and how much money you have to pay back at the end,” she said. “I’m more inclined to vote now.”






Related Stories: