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Citizenship light: Canadians seem less than enthusiastic about discharging their civic responsibilities but they sure like those rights.

Article Excerpt
Canada doesn't ask a lot of its citizens: pay your taxes and obey the law. That's about it. On the other hand, its citizens ask a lot of Canada. The list of fights and privileges that come with being a Canadian citizen is long and varied.

Beyond what Canadians are obliged to do by law, Ottawa has a few suggestions for things it thinks citizens ought to do:

* Express opinions freely while respecting the fights and freedoms of others;

* Help others in the community;

* Care for and protect our heritage and environment; and,

* Eliminate discrimination and injustice.

How well are Canadians doing in these "ought to dos?" One measure is volunteering. According to Statistics Canada, almost 12 million Canadians volunteered their time to charities or other nonprofit organizations in 2004. That's 45 percent of the population aged 15 and over. These involved citizens contributed two billion hours of unpaid work. That sounds impressive until you dig a little deeper into the data. A small number of people are responsible for most of volunteering; 25 percent of volunteers contributed 77 percent of the hours.

The same imbalance applied to financial donations to charity. More than 22 million Canadians--85 percent of the population aged 15 and over--gave money to a charity in 2004. As with giving time, a quarter of those who made charitable contributions accounted for 82 percent of the total.

Another gauge of how well we discharge our duties as citizens is engagement in civic affairs. The performance of Canadian citizens is not very good here either.

Routinely, one in four of us can't be bothered turning out to vote in federal elections. Local elections get an even more dismal showing; typically, in municipal ballots two out of three voters stay home. The groups with the lowest turnouts are young people and the poor.

Canada is not alone in this. Voter turnout in established democracies has been declining steadily since the 1960s. Study after study has revealed no single cause for this; it's a combination of loss of trust in politicians, economic contentment, lack of time, and simple laziness.

Some countries have an answer for this--compulsory voting. In Australia, there is a fine of $20 for not voting and possibly jail if you don't pay the fine. Ninety-five out of every 100 people show up to vote down under. About 20 other countries have some form of forced voting, among them Argentina, Belgium, and the Philippines.

That's the stick approach. Others suggest using...

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