The government has as much to blame for it as Canadian citizens. There is always whining about low voter turnout, but do they ever do anything about it?
Even the advertising campaign that was basically "remember to vote" was poorly managed. You can't just put up a commercial and expect it to work...there is so much more planning that needs to go into it. They need to understand what is going on in people's heads when they decide not to vote. Only then can they come up with a campaign to persuade people that voting matters.
As small a detail as having an election day radio commercial that was similar to the rest with a reminder that said "Today is election day, remember to vote!" would have made the whole campaign much more effective (for any marketing students on the board its called Aperture. for those that aren't marketing students its the concept that we want to catch people right when they are most likely to respond [which is why global has radio commercials that say 'remember, new episode of heroes tonight']). If you were driving around and heard it you might have stopped and thought to yourself "oh yeah, i'll make a stop after I drop off the kids, it'll only take 5 seconds"
I don't see how the government can complain about voter apathy when they are not actually taking steps to deal with it. Either they themselves are apathetic to this problem or they've put the wrong people in charge of dealing with it.
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