This election was supposed to be about restoring hope for young Canadians. What happened?
This election was supposed to be about restoring hope for young Canadians. What happened?
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the plight of young people has faded into the background, as the trade war with the U.S. takes centre stage in Canada’s federal election. Meanwhile, political parties have said more about protecting seniors’ retirements than helping young Canadians get a head start.
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New polling conducted by Nanos Research for The Globe and Mail and CTV News suggests that while the trade war is the top issue for Canadians 55 years and older, the cost of living is the priority for younger Canadians. Only one in 10 Canadians polled under the age of 35 said the trade was their main issue.
Canadians under the age of 35 are also more likely to trust Mr. Poilievre (38 per cent) – who has made the cost of living a central focus of his campaign – than Mr. Carney (26 per cent) to help young people.
The trade war has “taken the oxygen out of the room,” said Mike Moffatt, founding director of the Missing Middle Initiative, a project housed in the University of Ottawa’s Institute for the Environment with the stated goal of reviving Canada’s urban middle class.
“Other than housing, there has been a real absence of any policy to help struggling young people.”
I would say that any young person thinking that Pierre is going to make your life better is so fucking full of cope. Pierre won't make your life better. More and more young people have part time jobs, no benefits, and are struggling to find a home and if they do it's an old outdated piece of shit going for half a million.
Atleast the liberals and NDP have been giving them dental coverage, pharmacare coverage and affordable, quality childcare. The liberals and NDP are also proposing plans that will help FIRST time home buyers buy new, Pierre is suggesting to "axe the tax" on ALL new homes without limit of how many you can buy. (Rich people will buy them all).
The liberals plan to do as we did after ww2 is the proven method to do this, and for young people looking for a home or a career, this is how we do it. This housing program will generate hundreds of thousands of trades positions that we desperately need and they pay decently. Using new technologies and new methods while also cutting development fees.
Idk, just baffles me that young 20 somethings are talking about how Pierre is their guy because..... They say life has been harder then ever? When those 20 somethings have only just began to enter the work force enmasse? Like I'm sorry but these kids were in elementary school when Trudeau got elected and every day since their parents have been paying for less and less of their stuff. They are still under their parents insurance if they're in college or university and it's just wild to me that they would actually think this.
Maybe it's them scrolling social media endlessly and seeing random fucking people there repeating "lost liberal decade" or "things have never been worse" (when they have in fact been much much worse).
They should be indeed, but also where the fuck are the parents of these kids and who raised them? Remember growing up and being told "you can't believe everything you see on the internet" and now we got those kids who were told that raising kids who are perpetually online and consuming endless brain rot? I even get stuck on an Instagram reel to some dipshit spouting about how things are so bad and the liberals are bad and that Pierre will fix it.... And like... This is a RANDOM FUCKHEAD talking. No credentials, now proof, no statistics.
Get your kids off of social media and make them think objectively
It's half an issue about messaging. The problem is that the Liberal messaging keeps sounding like things designed for older generations and not things that'll help younger Canadians, while Cons messaging sounds like they re for younger Canadians rather than older ones.
Yes, Liberal plans on expanding housing while preserving healthcare are definitely things that are good for younger Canadians, but they both sound like things that are only for older generations. Like building more houses are only for rich Canadians to buy cottages and healthcare are for old people who can't get out of bed because of their bad knees, not that housing means that first-time buyers finally have houses within their price ranges, or that getting sick and taking time off work doesn't equate to being 20 years in debt because hospitals gouge you for everything you have because people are willing to mortgage the rest of their lives to get life-saving treatments.
On the other hand, the Cons keep saying they'll create resource jobs and reduce taxes, making it sound like they're opening up so everybody can become gold diggers and stop the government from taking their hard-earned pay, when it's actually not even close to being true. That the jobs the Cons promise are only minimum wage jobs at best, in terrible conditions and far away from all convenience, or that the taxes reduced will save the rich millions while the poor still can't afford to buy the houses and services that the taxes get saved on, making it so that they are actually subsidizing the rich even more than before. Not to mention that every $100 cut in taxes means that the average Canadian will pay thousands more for the services that they've been getting all their lives.
But no, the Cons are better at wording their platform to appeal to the worst off in Canada, yet those are the ones cheering for them the most. The Cons are really the world's best conmen, and too many Canadians are too desperate to notice.
Fairly sure the younger cohort is deciding largely based on the past performance of the existing government. Justin's Liberals have been in power since 2015 -- for many 18-28 year olds, the Liberal government is the only party they've known / seen. And in that time, have things improved on the housing front?
Or did the government start off campaigning on it as an issue, but then when the issue spiked due to other Liberal policies (mass influx of immigrants post COVID), did they attempt to claim it wasn't a federal government responsibility? And they then flip flopped on that again, and re-assigned the guy they had in charge of the mass, chaotic influx of immigrants to be in charge of figuring out housing (Miller). A decade of promising advances on that file, and a decade of it getting exponentially worse. And it is exponentially worse, you just have to google charts on housing prices / historical trends to see it, there've been tons of articles in the news over the years screaming about it to the ears of deaf politicians. The party swapping leaders last second isn't going to erase that history, one that was supported by the party at large.
For example, the CMHC has a chart of averages/medians for the vancouver region here: https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-pimh/en/TableMapChart/Table?TableId=1.10.1&GeographyId=2410&GeographyTypeId=3&DisplayAs=Table&GeograghyName=Vancouver . From 1990 to 2000, the median went from 280k to 360k -- about 30% over 10 years, roughly 3% per year. Even back then it was considered a good move to buy/invest in housing due to the appreciation in value beating inflation targets. From 2015 to 2022 (the end of the tables data), it went from 1.09m to 2.06m -- about 89% in 8 years, roughly 11% per year. And that includes years where the COVID immigration disruption "briefly" flattened the increase -- it was up to 2m in 2018, dropped to 1.6m in 2020, and then shot back up once the flood gates were re-opened. Wages, to the surprise of absolutely no one, can't keep up with that sort of increase: it's completely unhinged. From a younger person's perspective, that's what the Liberals did.
That cohort is also young enough that things like Childcare will only apply to a small % of the group. Likewise, likely, for dental coverage -- many young people in Uni will get extended coverage from any parental work-coverage, and young people who work will have that potential coverage directly. Dental costs are also less 'present' and ubiquitous than housing costs -- you gotta pay rent monthly, but you don't need an annual root canal. Government Dental is a perk more for retired seniors, disabled/long-term unemployed people and middle-aged people who don't have coverage through work -- even the CBC ran stories focusing on the senior demographic for that one (the person highlighted, iirc, was a ~75 year old who'd worked in America most of her life, who is currently still working to pay for her dentures). Hell, even when I was in uni, at least one of my friends, who had coverage, didn't bother going to the dentist for years cause she just wasn't fussed. Even as a middle aged person, I'm personally not that fussed with anything the liberals / ndp promise the senior cohort -- many millenials are jaded enough at this point, that promises for boomers are viewed as things that will disappear by the time we get old enough to qualify, if we get old enough to qualify given how healthcare/GP access has also deteriorated: I fully expect to die younger than my parents. I can understand why an even younger generation wouldn't be in favour of putting in social supports for boomers -- at this point it isn't the boomers who are having to pay the taxes, its the boomers voting explicitly to give themselves perks at the expense of younger generations.
I think Pierre / the cons are a terrible choice, personally. But I can fully understand why the younger folks would be swayed by the idea of change, even if its just smashing things apart like we're seeing in the States. The last decade has been bleak, and there's no tangible reason to think that the promises of the party in charge during that decade are worth anything going forward.
Yeah but you're saying that as if these people don't have access to the entirety of human history in the palms on their hands, and on their tvs. They are fucking consumed with non important bullshit instead of realizing that we have been downt he road before, and the solution to it is not what Pierre and the cons are suggesting.
The article interviews people in their 30s, and the poll is of Canadians under 35. I'm not sure about our demographics, but I'd expect many of the respondents have been in the workforce for a few years. They're generally priced out of home ownership and their rent has skyrocketed. Those are the same people who are reporting lower levels of happiness (as per the article), and probably having a harder time with the inflation we've seen since the start of COVID.
Blaming their concerns on "scrolling social media endlessly" doesn't address the problem that they are legitimately having a shit time. I don't think the Conservatives have the answers to these problems, but dismissing them out of hand sucks.
I'm just happy to still be considered young lol.
My circle, most want the Feds to do more with what they can, but largely place blame on provinces & municipalities for housing & rent, Ontario removed rent controls for units built after 2018 when the pcpo formed government as one example. The lower levels of government have a larger impact on your day to day and yet have the lowest engagement, my (ndp) MPP even sent out a "this level of government is responsible for this" magnet with numbers and departments of it to (I think) help address that.
I know the article mentions 30 yr olds, I'm almost 30 myself but I'm just talking about people 18-25. They are ALL talking about Pierre as if he's the guy to fix their problems and I believe it really is because they aren't able to simply look at history to show them what happened with shit that Pierre is proposing and how it Infact does not make their lives easier
As a young person (<30), many older (50-75) people keep telling me its my only hope to vote conservative if I ever want to afford a home and have a good paying job. Present any opposition they'll claim you're following the lies and dooming yourself, and you are also now part of the problem in their eyes.
Any 30+ Canadian lived through the harper years and if they still can say the only hope is the conservative after that then I don't trust their judgment. period.
I long for the day politic won't be about weaponizing the dunning-krueger effect.
If he cuts immigration it increases wage pressure, which with aging demographics means higher salaries and shrinking home values.
The reverse of what we did the last decade, feeding wealth to the old. Which is why Carney is loved by Boomers. So either a 400$ dental check funded with debt your generation gets to pay for, versus your rent being cut in half, what to choose..
Tell me again how Milhouse will cut your rent? He's not MY landlord.