YOUNG VOTERS DELIVERED LIBERAL MAJORITY TO TRUDEAU

HALIFAX — Gabriel Duguay is only 19, but already sees voting as an almost sacred duty for his generation.

Presently an Indigenous fisheries student at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, the Truro native has kept his sights firmly set on politics back home.

“I think first of all politics is something that elevates you to think above yourself and self-interest,” said Duguay, who heads into his second year this fall. “It’s really important for my generation to think about the society we want to see.”

He described the current 18-25 age cohort to which he belongs as having “very strong ideals,” shaped by organizations that speak to their interests and influence voting patterns.

Such organizations can span anything from social movements concerning matters like climate change to youth parliaments.

Duguay began his political journey when he was just 12. He attended Question Period in the House of Commons in Ottawa, just three days before then-pm Stephen Harper lost a no-confidence vote, triggering the 2011 election that gave him a majority government.

“Seeing the agitation and excitement in the House made me realize this is something I want to be a part of,” said Duguay.

The numbers back up Duguay’s feelings on voting: according to Elections Canada, roughly 4.2 million voters aged 18-34 voted in the 2015 federal election, about 57 per cent of all Canadians in both the 18-24 and 25-34 age brackets.

That’s a dramatic difference from 2011, both in terms of turnout and in raw voting numbers.

Then, just 38.8 per cent of Canadians aged 18-24 and 45.1 per cent of voters in the 25-34 age bracket made it to the polls on May 2 of that year. This works out to roughly three million voters aged between 18 and 34 who voted in that election, which saw the Conservatives under Stephen Harper win a majority.

Turnout in all four Atlantic Provinces matched the federal trend.

In 2015, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals formed a majority government, helped by winning all 32 Atlantic Canadian seats.

According to Abacus Data and the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, the youngest cohort of voters aged 18-25 increased their 2015 election turnout by 12 percentage points compared to 2011.

Polls taken after the election concluded that young voters, probably motivated by Trudeau’s youth and leftish platform, delivered a majority to the Liberals. A 2016 Abacus Data poll concluded that 45 per cent of Canadians aged 18-25 voted Liberal. Abacus CEO David Coletto told Huffington Post at the time that their data suggested that “young people really gave the Liberals a majority.”

While millennials, loosely defined as anyone born between the early 1980s and early 2000s, are starting to flex their political muscles, their turnout numbers still lag behind their baby boomer parents.

In 2015 for example, 73.7 per cent of all Canadians aged 55-64 and 78.8 per cent of those in the 65-74 age bracket turned up at the polls. This translates to nearly six million voters in total between the ages of 55 and 74 casting a ballot.

In 2019, though, all millennials will be of voting age and in Canada, the age group will comprise the largest demographic among voters. There’s more of them, and more of them are voting.

Their political muscles are bulging south of the border as well.

The Pew Institute reports that Generation Xers, Millennials and ‘Generation Z’ — loosely classed as those born after 2000 — were the largest collective group casting votes in the 2018 American midterm elections.

Of this younger group, 62.2 million of them cast votes last year, compared to 60.1 million baby boomers and older generations.

Duguay said he will vote Liberal if a federal election “is called tomorrow,” as he liked the party’s emphasis on infrastructure spending, even if it runs up a deficit.

However, he was less impressed with their Nova Scotian counterparts, who have overseen a labour dispute with teachers, an ongoing doctor shortage and closures of hospital ERS.

“I think the provincial Liberals are so focused on the bottom line that they may decide [such spending] would harm the future of Nova Scotia,” said Duguay.

While Duguay says his principles are no different per se, such discrepancies between federal and provincial voting patterns are highly common, according to Dalhousie University political sociologist Howard Ramos.

“There’s a lot of disjuncture between the federal and provincial parties,” said Ramos.

4.2 MILLION That’s the number of people aged 18-34 who cast a ballot in the 2015 federal election 12% INCREASE That’s the difference in young voter turnout in between the federal elections of 2011 and 2015 37% According to Abacus data, millennials could reach this portion of the electorate in 2019, and will be the largest age segment