The Conservatives are now the most popular party amongst the youth, with 36 per cent of those aged 18-29 polling toward the party of Poilievre. This is a major shift from just a few years ago, when the Conservatives of Harper, Scheer, and O’Toole lost the youth vote to both the NDP and Liberals. So why the change of heart?
Canada’s youth have known nothing but capitalist crisis. A 20-year old today was born during the Iraq war, was four during the crash of 2008, 12 when Donald Trump won the presidency, 16 when Covid shut down their schools, and entered the workforce amidst the worst inflationary crisis in decades. Nearly a million Canadian youth are unemployed, and those lucky enough to get a job have had their first tax dollars spent on a senseless war in Ukraine and a ramping up of armament.
The youth are angry at the system which has brought them nothing but misery and destitution. They are abandoning the status-quo Liberals in search of an answer to the doom looming over them.
The NDP, who traditionally attracted the youth vote, has betrayed them in this search. They have tied themselves hand-and-foot to the discredited status quo by propping up the Liberals. In effect, they have made themselves virtually indistinguishable from them.
For most of their life, the Conservatives have been much the same, but Poilievre promises something different. He has thrust himself into their view as a force condemning the status quo, calling out the fact that “young people, who did everything we asked them to do, are stuck trapped in their parents’ basements.” Our 20-year-old, though not enticed by any of his policies, does relate with this rhetoric.
The increased youth support for the Conservatives is not the realization of a rightward shift in youth consciousness. Gen Z is not a “conservative generation”, as some have argued. It’s the opposite. They are fed up with the establishment, and Poilievre has taken advantage of the inability of the left to provide an outlet for this mood.
But in the end, no capitalist party will be able to solve the crisis of capitalism. Those youth currently attracted to Poilievre will be left as betrayed and disappointed. Poilievre is a right-wing libertarian who would enact the massive cuts that Trudeau has been able to put off for a decade, and would quickly alienate the youth and workers that believed he would stick it to the rich and the establishment.
It is only in a revolutionary communist program that the youth will find a complete answer to their suffering. We must build the RCP so that we can serve as the left outlet for this anger, and organize their youthful rage toward the overthrow of the capitalist system which has filled their short lives with endless crisis.
