No partisanship, I am telling members. I was a school trustee and I know that if someone goes into a school and starts getting partisan, that person will not be back there. It just will not happen.
I stand firm on the commitment that I do not get partisan, but I can say that I have been in the schools in my riding and have entered into discussions on the trade agreements and how they affect the farm situation. We have had discussions about the BSE crisis. That was with grade 9 and grade 10 students. There are a lot of adults in this country who do not have the same type of knowledge that I was experiencing in those classrooms and we still give them the right to vote. And well we should. We expect that individuals take time to learn about what they are going to be voting on and to understand the different parties.
I think we have reached that fork in the road where we make a decision as a country to go a bit further, to take that leap and to put the trust in the young people in our country. I think that time is now.
I was involved in this in the last Parliament. I had a private member's bill on this. I remember having discussions with one of the former Conservative's daughters, Catherine Clark. I think it was with one of my colleagues from the Conservatives, the member for Port Moody--Westwood--Port Coquitlam, I believe, that I had discussions about the age group. We acknowledged some of the dynamics of what was allowed within parties at age 14, but somehow people still say we should not allow 16 year olds to vote. I think we have a lot of hypocrisy involved in this and we need to go beyond that.
I also want to make a point of mentioning that within the first nations communities we have a situation: not a lot of people go out and vote. Many Canadians do not realize that aboriginal people in Canada, certainly first nations, did not have the right to vote until much later than everyone else. Sometimes there is criticism that if they do not want to get out and vote it is their own fault, but again, let us recognize that sometimes people have to get into the habit of voting. They need to see that voting works and they need to be able to see change.
First nations people have not been given the same length of time to get into that process, so I think it is crucially important in the first nations communities that 16 year olds have the opportunity to get involved in the election process. They will be in their schools and they can take the time to learn about the different political parties and the different policies of those parties. That can be done in a non-partisan way. We can get the information out there and then they can make a decision and become involved in the electoral process.
A number of first nations communities elect junior chiefs and councils. That is the area of government they see firsthand, the chiefs and councils in their communities. A number of those communities have junior chiefs and councils who try to be actively involved in how their communities work.
If those young people are taking the time to see themselves as junior chiefs and councils, I also think they would take the time to see themselves involved in the whole political process within the country. From the perspective of encouraging first nations and aboriginal youth to become part of the electoral process, I also think it is crucially important.
I have just a few minutes left. I want to thank my colleague from Ajax—Pickering and my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley for pursuing this issue in this Parliament. I certainly support this motion. I would encourage everyone else to take that extra strong leap and support young people having the opportunity to vote, because they have shown that they are active participants in Canada. We should give them the opportunity to be actively involved politically.