Does it seem frightening to anyone else that my 14-year-old son, who can't pick up his empty pop cans, discarded cheese-string wrappers or dirty socks, is just old enough to vote for the next provincial leader tasked with cleaning up much bigger messes?
According to the current UCP membership application, you only have to be 14 to vote for the next provincial leader of Alberta's governing party. I love my boy. He's smart and a great kid, but if my wife and I didn't remind him almost every winter day to "wear a warmer coat" or "feed the guinea pigs", he'd likely get frostbite ... and we'd have two dead pets.
He's 14 — he barely knows how to spell Legislature. But now he can vote for the person to run it?
It frightens me.
You can't vote in a provincial election until you are 18. You can't even be a pre-registered voter for a future election — something Elections Alberta adorably calls "future voters" — until you are 16.
But you can vote for the Premier at 14.
In other words, a current requirement to hold a UCP membership card — and vote for the next person who will represent four million Albertans — is easier to achieve than trying to ride in a full-size go-cart at most amusement parks.
I mean, you can't even get a "responsible person" badminton racket at our local recreation centre until you're 18. Until then, you play with a cheap-o plastic version while enviously watching adults play with what my 10-year-old daughter calls "18-plus" rackets. So, while your net-attack might be hampered in a doubles match during a Grade 9 phys ed class at the Bold Center because they won't trust you with a $20 racket, you can take out your post-game frustrations by voting for the next political leader of a province with a $300 billion GDP ... and then you can go back to that amazing cavern community you're building in Minecraft.
I know the children are our future ... but I don't think they should be voting on it just yet.
Perhaps all the inevitable ruckus over who is running and who is fighting in the approaching UCP leadership battle has overshadowed the very real worry of who is voting.
