Sour economy could weaken Liberal appeal

Party hold over young voters may not last

When Canadians next go to the polls to pick a prime minister, in the fall of 2019, the youngest of the millennial generation will have reached voting age.

Not only that, but millennials — defined in this instance as those born between 1980 and 2000 — will form the single largest pool of potential voters, while baby boomers — those born between 1946 and 1964 — will, for the first time in decades, no longer be the largest generational cohort going to the polls.

This demographic seachange is already changing politics on both sides of the border and the “millennial effect” is almost certain to be amplified in Canada in the coming years.

A growing body of academic and polling research shows that millennials think about politics and react to politicians in profoundly different ways than their boomer or Gen-X parents.

Judging by last fall’s federal election results, the federal Liberals, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in particular, appear to be the ones, in this country, that first tapped what pollster David Coletto calls this “electoral superpower.”

In the 2015 general election, better than 50 per cent of those under 35 voted for a Liberal candidate, according to Coletto, the CEO of Abacus

The Pew Research Center finds that 57 per cent of American millennials identify as Democrats.

Pollster Frank Graves of Ekos Research finds that millennials tend to be “highly progressive and pluralistic with a strong environmental ethic.”

Political preference, though, is one thing. What made Canada’s political class wake up and take notice of this group was their voter turnout 12 months ago. Young people crashed polling stations with a fervour analysts at Elections Canada had not witnessed since Confederation.

Elections Canada estimates that in 2011, just 38.8 per cent of those aged 18-24 voted. In 2015, turnout for that group soared to 55.1 per cent. For those aged 25 to 34, the 2011 turnout rate was 45.1 per cent but soared to 57.4 per cent last year.

That huge jump in voter turnout by young people ready to vote for Trudeau was arguably the most significant factor in the Liberal sweep.

And yet, for a party that seemed to be on solid ground with millennial voters a year ago, there are now tremors shaking that support.

First, Finance Minister Bill Morneau seemed to suggest that the working life of today’s millennials would be more uncertain than their parents. He talked about “precarious” jobs and the expectation that millennials would be more likely to spending their working lives moving through different contracts in between periods of re-training.

He may not be wrong, but his opponents jumped on him for telling the truth.

“These comments are arrogant, they’re insensitive and they clearly speak to a disconnect between Mr. Morneau and his government and what millennials in Canada are facing,” NDP MP Niki Ashton said.

Ashton, a millennial herself, has leadership ambitions ( she ran unsuccessfully in the race that Thomas Mulcair won) and is currently on a cross- country tour talking to millennials about their future. Until Justin Trudeau showed up, young voters were usually NDP voters. Now, the NDP needs to win them back.

Morneau’s c omments came on the heels of changes made by the federal government to the rules by which most first-time home-buyers get mortgage insurance. The effect of those changes could make it more difficult to obtain a mortgage, something that would disproportionately impact millennial voters.

The Conservatives have hammered the Liberals on that issue recently in the House of Commons.

Then, at last week’s annual conference for the Canadian Labour Congress, the prime minister himself got a rocky reception at a session for younger workers. Trudeau was harangued for any number of sins but mostly because of concerns over future job prospects and environmental issues.

And if millennials are miffed at Trudeau, the odds are pretty good that the parents or grandparents of those millennials will also be miffed.

There is plenty of polling data that shows that concern for the opportunities and prosperity of young people is a top priority for older voters, a phenomenon that provides a multiplier effect for the political power of millennials.

“There is general concern about how these kids are going to make it today that is probably more acute than it was in the past,” Coletto said.

The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) — a lobby group for post-secondary students — latched on to this a couple of years ago.

Recognizing t hat parents of students, rather than students themselves, were a more politically potent group, CASA stopped talking about the problem of “student debt” and started re- framing the problem as “family debt,” building on the idea that it was parents of millennials who, in many cases, might re- mortgage a home or otherwise borrow on their assets to get a son or a daughter some post-secondary education.

Now, with newly tightened mortgage insurance rules, look for millennials to tap the assets of mom and dad again in order to qualify for Ottawa-backed mortgage insurance, a trend that could, in turn, produce new political peril for the Trudeau government.

But it’s more than just “family debt” or tightened mortgage rules.

There is considerable consumer behaviour research that shows millennials are influential with their parents when it comes to purchasing decisions, particularly when it comes to technology. Coletto believes there is every reason to assume that, if a millennial’s advice on which smartphone to use or which ‘ green’ vehicle to buy is valued by a millennial’s parent, why wouldn’t parents of millennials be open to considering their kids’ political preferences?

“Never before in history have kids had such influence on their parents’ purchasing,” Coletto said. “So why can’t that influence extend to politics?”