GETTING INVOLVED, GETTING EXPERIENCE
CHILDREN OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM ARE DEFYING STEREOTYPES AND THROWING THEMSELVES INTO POLITICS. SOME ARE HAPPY TO INDULGE IN OLD-STYLE POLITICS, BUT MORE ARE INTERESTED IN CHANGING THE WAY THE GAME IS PLAYED.
THE NEXT TIME YOU’RE TEMPTED TO COMPLAIN ABOUT HOW SHIFTLESS AND APATHETIC YOUNG PEOPLE ARE, YOU MIGHT WANT TO RETHINK. YOUNG PEOPLE IN CANADA’S ELECTORATE, AND IN VOTING POPULATIONS ALL OVER WESTERN DEMOCRACIES, ARE NOW IN A POSITION TO WIELD SERIOUS INFLUENCE.
AND THEY’RE NOT SHY ABOUT DOING SO.
Last Friday, in the first week of our Deep Dive into Next Generation politics, we pointed out two important facts:
• Voter turnout of young people in Canada surged to 58 per cent, an increase of 18 per cent over the 2011 election.
• The millennial cohort, roughly those between 18-40, mostly children of baby boomers, are now the largest age group in Canada’s electorate.
That turnout delivered a strong majority, somewhat of a surprise, to the youthful leader of the Liberal party, Justin Trudeau. Youth turnout in the 2018 U.S. midterm elections was the highest in decades.
In recent years, according to “Why we should pay attention to the power of youth”, a commentary on the op-ed website The Conversation, youth movements have moved the needle on issues like gun control in the U.S., university tuition increases in Quebec and sex education in Ontario.
But more to the point, we should care about what young people think and pay attention to the issues that are important to them, because indications are that they are tired of having the political agenda being dictated to them by their elders. The best way to change that, of course, is to vote, forcing politicians to address the issues that are important to you.
There are two big issues that young voters have told us matter the most to them. The first can be no surprise: the environment. Young people have more of a stake in the future than their elders, and if we’re fouling the planet to the point where climate change is irreversible, they have the right to insist to the rest of us that something be done.
The second was a bit of a surprise: the cost of housing. But when you think about it, young people are trying to establish careers and start families and if you’re based in Canada’s largest cities, home ownership is unrealistic for most. We’ll deal with those two issues in next week’s Deep Dive installment.
This week, we profile several young difference-makers who have decided that just voting wasn’t enough. They had to get involved in politics. For these young volunteers, organizers and candidates, that involvement starts with knocking on doors, driving voters to polls, and in some cases, electoral victory.