Vote for fairness

A young person in custody contacted us last year to complain that he wasn’t able to vote in the federal election, although he had expressed his interest in voting to the youth facility’s staff members. In our review, we found that the facility didn’t have a proper process in place to ensure that young people were able to vote, and the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services hadn’t provided much guidance to facilities about the voting process. After Ombudsman staff followed up with the Ministry, a new policy was developed, which outlined the steps facilities should take to ensure that all eligible young people could vote in federal, provincial, and municipal elections. The policy has been implemented at all youth facilities across the province.