British Columbia·Our Vancouver

Why don't young people vote? New documentary explores voter apathy

Vancouver actor Dylan Playfair travels North America — including Ferguson, Missouri and the Burning Man festival — to explore why so few youth vote.

Vancouver actor hit the road to explore why less than half of Canada's young voters don't cast a ballot

Why youth don't vote

9 years ago
Duration 7:12
Filmmakers Ian Waddell and Dylan Playfair explore the reasons

The numbers don't lie — the majority of Canada's youth don't vote.

In the last federal election only 43 per cent of people under age 34 cast ballots, compared to 65 per cent of older voters.

"People change careers often in life now, people don't necessarily have to abide by one school of thought," actor and filmmaker Dylan Playfair, 23, told CBC host Gloria Macarenko.

"With a government that's set in stone for four years, it just doesn't seem to appeal to a lot of young people the way it did in my parent's generation."

The Vancouver filmmaker teamed up with former MLA and MP Ian Waddell to create the documentary The Drop: Why Young People Don't Vote, which follows Playfair as he travels around Canada and the U.S. trying to understand voter apathy among the Millennial generation.

In the video above, Playfair and Waddell share what they learned through the documentary, and describe the difference that the youth vote could make in the upcoming federal election.