Hon. Denise Batters: Senator Plett, in your speech you talked about the Lortie commission and how in 1990, I believe it was, when they did that particular study, they talked about the significant number of 16- and 17-year-olds who were in the workforce at that point. Having been someone slightly older than 16 in 1990, I think the number of 16- and 17-year-olds who were in the workforce then, it is probably a lower number of 16- and 17-year-olds who are in the workforce now, given how things have shifted over time. As a result, that would tend to lead credence to the suggestion that an 18-year-old voting component is probably where it should stay at the current time.

I’m wondering if you have any sense of that, whether there are more 16- or 17-year-olds in the workforce now than there would have been in 1990.

Senator Plett: Again, Senator McPhedran, I don’t know that you said it, but there was almost a suggestion there that I am doing this because it would hurt our electoral chances. I don’t think I mentioned that. I can bring a number of 16-year-olds forward that would vote for our party and a number that wouldn’t. That is not my reason. My reason, I think, was very clear. It had nothing to do with whose electoral chances would be enhanced or taken away.

Let me suggest this, Senator McPhedran. I think we’re starting at the wrong area. Let’s change some of our other laws. We could make 16-year-olds adults, but we don’t. Sixteen-year-olds are youth offenders. We can’t try them as adults unless there is special provision made and, obviously, a most serious and heinous crime. The same thing would apply for drinking, the same thing in the military. We’re going to suggest, or you’re suggesting, that we allow a person to vote, but we don’t allow that person to sit in Parliament. Maybe we should start with municipal elections, and we should lower the voting age of a person being able to represent me.

I don’t think somebody should be able to vote for me if they can’t take my spot in the House of Commons. Clearly, they can’t here. We have different ages here as well, but if they can’t take their place in the House of Commons, I don’t think they should vote.

Therefore, your idea of saying 16-year-olds are mature enough is laudable, and they may well be. However, if they are mature enough and if they are adults, then let’s treat them like adults all the way through. Let’s start from the beginning and move to here. Starting from this end and going backwards is the wrong way. We start from here and move forward.

Senator Plett: Let me suggest that when I was 16 I believed at that time that I was mature enough to vote, and I believed I was mature enough to do almost anything except going to adult court. At that point, I was a child offender or whatever the terminology is.

Do I believe it has shifted? By all means it has shifted, Senator Deacon. When I talk to my grandchildren — and I bragged about one of them a week ago — she is much more mature than I was at the age of 17. There is no doubt in my mind.

I wish today that I had maybe asked some of my grandchildren, “Do you think you’re old enough to vote?” I haven’t; I probably should and probably will.

But, as I said in my speech, we will probably base our judgment on the 16-year-olds we know personally. I would like to believe that my three 16-year-old and 17-year-old grandchildren, two boys and a girl, are the most mature 16- and 17-year-olds around. They aren’t, but I would like to believe they are.

Are they old enough to make these decisions? Yes. Are they old enough to be a member of Parliament? No, by no means. As I said to Senator McPhedran, I think we’re starting at the wrong end. I’m not saying they’re not mature. Neither did the justices say they’re not mature. They said they felt they had reached a good balance. The first one, as I said in my speech, took 100 years to move; the next one started in 20 years. I think we need a bit more time. I think we need to start at a different spot than this.

Senator M. Deacon: I would say then to my colleague that I look forward to further discussion on what that focused, targeted criteria are for making this decision in 2022, working through this together.