On Thursday, 19-year-old Toronto resident Catherine Mihevc will cast her first electoral ballot on the way home from work — a turning point in a lifetime of wanting to vote.

“I will leave home in the morning never having voted, and come back a little different,” said the eager Western University business student.

For the first time, millennials will make up the largest cohort of voters in an election, surpassing the previously dominant baby boomer generation. It is also the first time people born after the turn of the millennium will be able to vote in Ontario.

According to the most recent census, there are over 3.5 million Ontario residents — and potential voters — between the ages of 18 and 34.

Data from Statistics Canada shows that people in this age bracket are the least likely to vote in provincial elections. Only 34 per cent of eligible young voters went to the polls in Ontario’s 2014 election.

In casting her ballot, Mihevc, daughter of Toronto Councillor Joe Mihevc, is hoping to defy this trend — and dispel the notion that young voters are apathetic and won’t show up.

“There are so many issues on the table that affect our daily lives today and for when we think about building our future,” she said, citing a list of topics including, school loads, affordable house and even electoral reform.

As a canvasser for the movement #ShowtheF---Up, Mihevc has spoken to other young people about what’s holding them back from casting a ballot.

“People think that in the electoral system we have right now, our vote doesn’t count as much,” she said. “It’s preventing them from getting out to vote.”

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Paul Adams, a Carleton University professor who formerly worked in the polling industry, said that past elections where youth turnout has been high — including the Calgary municipal elections last fall, the 2008 U.S. elections, or the 2015 federal election — were centred around positive messaging and interesting leaders.

The Ontario election “is not Obama 2008 or Trudeau 2015 where you have an attractive, charismatic candidate who seems to embody some of the values more characteristic of young people,” Adams said.

“In this election we have a personally unpopular premier, an erratic and very compromising Conservative leader ... and an NDP candidate who seems to be an acceptable alternative,” he added.

“This is not an election that gets people out to vote for something but against something.”

Adams says that the millennial vote is impossible to predict, but youth may be motivated to vote against Ford out of an antipathy to U.S. President Donald Trump.

“If we wake up Friday morning and are surprised by an NDP government, the likely source of that vote would be millennials turning out to vote.”

For the past month, student leaders and youth activists on the ground have been working to ensure a momentum in millennial civic engagement.

“I think youth have always been engaged,” Stephanie Bertolo, vice-president of education at the McMaster Students’ Union and a director at the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, said.

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Bertolo has helped organize a candidates’ debate on campus and seen her peers participate in all levels of the electoral process — from candidate support to volunteering in debates and discussions.

Like Mihevc, Bertolo said students have diverse interests, ranging from tuition, transit and sexual violence prevention. “Students very much care about what the candidates are saying and how they will speak to students during their term.”

“I’m excited to see what happens,” she said. “I’m hopeful there will be a lot of us out on Election Day.”

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