In Canada we can vote without ID by declaring our name/address and having a friend/family member from the same district vouch that we are eligible to vote.
Yes anyone sending a transaction can choose to set a higher fee rate to get their transaction prioritized to be included in the chain. The miners will try to include transactions that will pay them the highest fees in the next block.
I believe this is a more of a UofT practice rather than a general Canadian practice? As a Waterloo grad CS grad once you were in the program, you were in. I I agree it's really cruel to students to have this kind of 1st/2nd year cut off system though.