MLAs reject private member’s bill to extend municipal voting rights to permanent residents, teens 16 and older

MLAs have rejected a pitch to explore allowing permanent residents and students aged 16 and up to vote in municipal and school board elections.

Mark Wasyliw, a independent MLA, tabled voter-eligibility changes last week in Bill 211 (The Local Elections Voter Eligibility Act).

“Many young people and new­comers are already deeply involved in their communities,” Wasyliw told the house Tuesday. “They study here, work here and raise families here, yet they currently have no say in the local decisions that shape their everyday lives.”

Wasyliw, who began his political career as Winnipeg school trustee from 2011 to 2019, made a lengthy, passionate speech in support of his private member’s bill when the legislature resumed after the Thanksgiving long weekend.

The MLA for Fort Garry argued his updates would engage more people in the democratic process and benefit society, at large.

Just over a third of eligible voters in the City of Winnipeg cast ballots in the 2022 elections for mayor and school board trustees. The results of current races lack legitimacy because a majority of citizens do not vote, Wasyliw said.

“That is a crisis of democracy and it needs to be addressed,” he said.

He ultimately failed to win over government benches filled with career teachers and parents of school-aged children.

The house voted against referring Bill 211 to committee.

Premier Wab Kinew ousted Wasyliw from his NDP caucus in 2024.

Wasyliw — a self-described “lifelong advocate for public education” — was a key adviser to Kinew’s inaugural education minister for less than a year.

NDP MLA Shannon Corbett asked Wasyliw why he is focused on voter eligibility “instead of addressing real barriers.”

Corbett cited the limited number of polling stations in northern Manitoba, as well as the lengthy distances northerners have to travel to cast a ballot.

The career educator left her vice-principal job to run for the NDP in a March byelection to fill the vacant seat that belonged to Nello Altomare, who died earlier this year.

Wayne Balcaen, the Progressive Conservative MLA for Brandon West, questioned why the bill was grouping together two distinct issues.

“Isn’t there a risk of mischief by letting school-aged children help decide who makes policy decisions at a school board level?” Balcaen asked aloud in the chamber.

Wasyliw said that’s “one of the myths” surrounding lowering the voting age.

He noted that 16- and 17-year-olds can drive, enlist in the military and seek emancipation.

“They will be some of the most- (and) best-educated voters because they’re in a structured learning environment and they will be putting pressure on their parents who are currently not voting in elections,” he told the house.

Manitoba’s next municipal and school board elections are scheduled for Oct. 28, 2026.

The races take place every four years on the last Wednesday of October, which is inevitably a school day.

Toronto teens are currently able to vote in neighbourhood-level polls on planning and policy issues.

“Each and every election, fewer and fewer Manitobans are voting and we know that young people are less likely to vote,” Wasyliw said. “Poor and marginalized Canadians are also less likely to vote.”

He added there is a precedent, given Manitoba lowered the provincial voting age from 21 to 18 in 1969.

The draft legislation was endorsed by Immigration Partnership Winnipeg. Newcomer advocates showed up at the legislature in support of the bill.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca