Murphy’s Logic: Concerns of younger voters should be taken seriously

Steve Murphy thinks the federal government should listen to the concerns of the young generation.

I’m a boomer. Moreover, I’m now a senior. Those are terms that I’ve never cared for but they are demographic definitions I cannot deny.

A deep dive into the data from the April 28 federal election reveals people in my cohort strongly supported the Liberals. More younger voters supported the Conservatives.

That’s pretty much the opposite to the way it used to be. It’s worth looking at why.

The simplest explanation may also prove to be the correct one. Older voters wanted less change than younger voters and Mark Carney’s Liberals represented just the right amount of change. Not much; a different face on a familiar body of policy. By definition, it was the small “c” conservative choice.

Every vote counts and the Liberals got the most, the party’s best popular vote since 1980 – so they’re entitled to govern as they see fit. But even as Conservative support dips in recent polls, the Liberal government should spend considerable time reflecting on why so many others – 41 per cent of the electorate and a great many younger Canadians – voted for change and what it is they want to change. They have legitimate concerns and complaints.

It’s a long time since a person like me bought a first house and back then, people like me assumed it was only a matter of when we got a first house, not if we got one. Nor did many of us live in our parents’ basements, or couch surf because we could afford nothing else. If we had student debts, they were relatively modest, and our jobs were usually full time and secure and came with pensions and benefits, which many of us took for granted.

That’s not the way it is for many young people and millennials today. Many of them resent us and what we’ve got – many of us seem entitled and dismissive. We owe it to younger Canadians to listen respectfully to their concerns, to understand them and to insist that government address them. This is not the time for the kind of us versus them thinking and behaviour that often defines partisan politics.