Not Interested in Politics

Every federal election, about a third of eligible Canadians do not vote, and the country asks them why. The answer that reaches the public is one line long: they were not interested in politics. It is the top reason in every Statistics Canada release since 2015. It is the word "apathy" in the headline the week before a vote. It is the reason a campaign to fix turnout goes looking for the voter, on TikTok or at the door.

The line is accurate. It is also the last stage of a sort. Before a non-voter's answer reaches the headline it passes through a list of reasons that someone wrote, a box that someone drew around five of them, and a table that prints one. This file follows the answer through each stage, using the published record of the agencies that ran the surveys, and sets it beside what the same people say when the list is written differently.

§01 · The headline

After each federal election, Statistics Canada adds questions to its Labour Force Survey on behalf of Elections Canada and asks the people who did not vote for their reason. It publishes the result in The Daily. The lead has not changed in three elections.verified

2015: the most common reason was not being interested in politics, 32% of non-voters, the top reason in every age group from 18 to 64. 2019: 35%, the top reason in every age group except 75 and over. 2021: "the most common reason for not casting a ballot was not being interested in politics (32%)."verified

Among young non-voters, 18 to 24, the figure was 33%, 35% and 33%.verified That is the number that becomes the sentence about young people.

One reason in three, every time, in every age group. The headline writes itself.

§02 · The box marked political

The reasons are not published as a flat list. Since 2015 Statistics Canada has sorted them into groups, and the group a reason lands in decides how it is read.verified

Under everyday life, every reason gets its own line. Under political, one does. "Did not like the candidates" and "felt voting would not make a difference" are in the box, counted, and never shown. They share the seven points between the group total and the one line that is printed: 39 less 32 in 2021, 42 less 35 in 2019, 39 less 32 in 2015.verified

In 2011 the sort was done in the definition itself. That release had no groups. Its top category was "not interested in voting", 27.7% of non-voters, and a note under it said the category "also includes those who felt their vote would not make a difference in the election results."verified A person who said the vote would change nothing was counted, in print, as not interested.

§03 · Ask again, with another list

The answer depends on the list. Elections Canada runs its own survey after each election, the National Electors Study, and asks non-voters for their main reason under the same group names. There, "not interested in politics" is a small item.verified

2019: 9%. 2021: 4%, against 13% who did not like the candidates, parties or campaign and 12% who felt voting would not make a difference. 2025: 8%, beside 9% who felt it would make no difference, 8% who did not like the choices and 7% who did not know whom to vote for.verified

Élections Québec wrote a different list again. Its survey after the 2018 provincial election, run with Université Laval and allowing more than one reason, offered no "not interested in politics" at all. The top answer was « avait perdu confiance envers les élus et la politique », had lost confidence in elected officials and politics: 54% of non-voters. Then « n'aimait aucun candidat ou chef ou parti », liked no candidate, leader or party: 45%. The study's own wording: no reason drew a majority "à l'exception la perte de confiance envers les élus et la politique."verified

After the 2021 municipal elections, Élections Québec's survey put the reasons in the first person. The top answer was a lack of information on the issues and candidates, 52%. Next, « j'avais l'impression que mon vote ne changerait rien », I felt my vote would change nothing: 50%. No interest in municipal politics came third, 44%. Nineteen percent of non-voters said they had neither seen nor received any information about the candidates; among voters, 5%.verified

Where "lost confidence" is on the list, it comes first. Where it is not, it has to go somewhere.

§04 · The young, who do not care

If young non-voters did not care, their turnout would be a trait. It moves like a dial. On Elections Canada's own estimates, turnout among 18 to 24 year olds went from 38.8% in 2011 to 57.1% in 2015, then 53.9% in 2019, 46.7% in 2021, and 55.9% in 2025.verified An eighteen-point rise in four years is not a generation discovering civic virtue. Elections Canada's 2025 report notes that the gap between young and older voters was smallest in the three elections where it ran Vote on Campus: 2015, 2019 and 2025.verified

Elections Canada studied the question directly in 2011. Its National Youth Survey sorted the reasons young people gave into two kinds, motivation and access, and found: "Issues related to access barriers were cited by 64% of non-voters, while 33% cited issues related to motivation." The single line labelled "I don't care (lack of interest)" was 12%. A quarter of young non-voters did not know where to vote, and a quarter did not know when; among voters, 3% and 2%.verified

In its 2015 survey, 56% of non-voters said they were at least somewhat interested in Canadian politics, and 63% in that election.verified

§05 · The word on the page

The word that carries the box into public life is apathy, and it has been in the record a long time. In July 2003, Elections Canada's own journal, Electoral Insight, published an academic's conclusion that "many, if not most, young Canadians avoid the polls because of political apathy rather than cynicism." A survey of non-voters from the same period, on Elections Canada's site, filed youth reasons under a heading it called "Disengagement."verified In 2011 an Elections Canada spokesperson told the Ottawa Citizen that young non-voters were "going to remain disengaged throughout their lives."verified

Radio-Canada, during the 2012 Québec campaign: « la cause principale de cette désaffection est tout simplement un manque d'intérêt pour la politique », the main cause is simply a lack of interest in politics.verified CBC, 2015: "Why don't young people vote? New documentary explores voter apathy."verified

This month. CBC Kitchener-Waterloo, 12 October 2026: "Can social media engage apathetic young voters in Ontario's elections?" and "Is TikTok or Instagram the solution to voter apathy among young people?" The Canadian Press, 19 October 2026, a week before Toronto votes: "How community organizations are trying to fight voter apathy in this Toronto election."verified

Each of those pieces proposes a remedy, and every remedy is aimed at the non-voter: reach them on their phone, knock on their door, teach them civics. That follows from the word. If the reason is that they do not care, the job is to make them care. A reason that says the vote changes nothing, or that none of the choices is acceptable, would point the job somewhere else.

§06 · The same people, four ballots

Turnout is a count of who voted. It moves with what is on the ballot, and the same residents produce very different counts depending on which ballot it is.

The federal election of April 2025 drew 69.0%, the highest turnout since 1993. Québec's general election of 5 October 2026 drew 66.92%. The province's municipal elections in November 2025 drew 41.3%, Montréal's mayoral race 37.07%. Toronto's 2022 municipal election drew 29.68%, and Toronto votes again on Monday, 26 October.verified A person who votes for Prime Minister and stays home for city council has not lost interest in politics between April and November. The thing that changed is the ballot, and what the voter was told about it: that is where Élections Québec found its top municipal reason, the 52% who said they lacked information on the candidates.

The trust record sits beside it. In Statistics Canada's latest reading, the fourth quarter of 2024, 28.3% of Canadians had high confidence in Parliament, down from 33.9% in April 2022. The police stood at 63.4%, the courts at 48.2%.verified In Québec's own survey, losing confidence in elected officials and politics was the one reason that a majority of non-voters gave.

§07 · The wash: sorted, folded, headlined

Follow one answer through the machine and read what each stage calls it.

No stage of that is false. The survey counts what people said. The groups are documented in the notes to readers. The table prints a real figure, the release leads with the largest printed line, and the reporter quotes the release. That is how laundering works: nobody has to lie. An answer about the system goes in, and an attitude of the voter comes out, clean, labelled and ready for a remedy.

What the record holds, unfolded, is narrower and more useful. Some non-voters are not interested. Some were too busy or away. Some could not prove an address or did not know where to go. And a share the published federal tables never break out said what the Québec survey let a majority say: that they did not trust the people on the ballot, or did not believe the vote would change anything.