Are aging progressives turning Gen Z into a right-of-centre generation?
Budget 2024 was supposed to bring Gen Z firmly into the Liberal fold. It risks pushing them out of it.
"Younger voters tend to skew left" is a mantra that's long been considered a certainty by many strategists. But is that still the case?
Polling data suggests that in Canadian federal politics, it's not. Canada's federal Conservatives have opened up a yawning delta of support in the under-30 cohort between their party and the governing hard-left Liberal party. This trend has only grown over the past 12 months, so it can't be dismissed as a momentary blip. Something has changed in the political opinions of Canada's youth. The question is, why?
This week's federal budget suggests the governing Liberal party thinks that it's because they haven't been leaning hard enough into the same types of policies they've employed over the last nine years. Budget 2024 was heavy on deficit spending and tax increases and light on firm deliverables. Its language didn't stray from a now decades-old, rigid system of ideology that the Liberals have long positioned as the only way to achieve social inclusion (i.e. the woke movement).
However, this approach is unlikely to work and may push young Millennial and Gen Z voters further out of the left-leaning fold (Gen Z usually refers to those born in the mid to late 90’s through the early 2010’s). Asking this voter cohort to keep supporting policies that have arguably made life less equitable for them suggests the government is incapable of listening to them, much less understanding that the socialist-esque policies of the Liberals (and their New Democratic Party partners) aren't delivering the results they need.
One high-profile example came from a post-budget tweet from Liberal Cabinet Minister Seamus O'Regan. The tweet evoked one of the more iconic scenes of (the now 25-year-old movie) Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, where the villain, Dr. Evil, fails to demonstrate generational relevance to his son with an epically cringe-worthy performance of the "Macarena" dance. The tweet in question featured a staged photo of Mr. O'Regan at a desk, clad in a tech bro-style puffer vest in front of a bank of laptops with the following caption:
“The Right to Disconnect is coming to Canadian workers. Employers will have to let you log off at the end of your day. #Budget2024”
The ratio (of negative responses to positive shares) on the tweet was prolific and merciless. Most respondents pointed out things that should have been obvious to the Liberals but clearly weren’t. Canadians—particularly those from Gen Z—are faced with an exorbitantly high cost of living and many have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. There's no logging off for them. Also, this proposal would only apply to workers in federally regulated industries—a small fraction of the Canadian workforce. So, how could it possibly create equity?
While supporting workers' rights should be a core function of the federal government, Mr. O'Regan's out-of-touch tweet belied a fact clear as day to many observers: after nine years of governing, the ruling Liberal party has no clue regarding the extent of change that has occurred in the Canadian workforce, never mind what the needs of young workers actually are.
However, the Liberals' problem is that Mr. O'Regan's tweet and policy were supposed to speak to Gen Z voters. The cohort's "quiet quitting" phenomenon has been attributed to the fact that the workers of this generation are expected to participate in the traditional "grind culture" of Western work society, but high inflation coupled with wage stagnation has eliminated many of the incentives for doing so.
Mr. O'Regan's tweet, however, seemed unwilling to consider the possibility that Gen Z might attribute the lowering of their standard of living—including an increased amount of time spent at work and stagnant wages - to nearly nine years of Liberal policies. Nor was his tweet the only tone-deaf-to-Gen Z example from the rollout of Budget 2024. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, in her speech to the House of Commons, asked a series of questions about what kind of country Canadians wanted.
The irony of Ms. Freeland including this set of questions was that all of the misfortunate circumstances they described had already come to pass under the tenure of her Liberal government.
Gen Z started coming of age during Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's near-decade of governing from the much-farther-than-centre left. They grew up or are growing up) listening to Boomer and Gen X progressives promise that their way of governing would give future generations a more prosperous future and create universal social justice. They also grew up being taught that activism has social value, and not to accept lip service from those in power.
So Mr. Trudeau now faces the problem of having set the bar high with Gen Z and having come nowhere close to meeting it. Nine years into his tenure, Gen Z's day-to-day reality is unaffordable rents, rising emissions, burning forests, a national opioid addiction crisis, non-existent health care, high crime rates, a divided pluralism, and no prospect of home ownership. They've watched the left double the federal debt while seeing lower service standards from the government. They've watched the left strengthen oligopolies and stifle innovation. They've watched Mr. Trudeau's Liberals go through so many scandals that it's easy for them to believe that in the government of Canada's progressive left, it's connected insiders, not the average young person, who can get ahead.
Said differently, there's a lot of evidence for Gen Z to point to that shows there's more social inequity now than when Mr. Trudeau took power.
And this is likely the reason why increasing numbers of 18-30-year-olds are considering a new political home. Its also why Mr. Trudeau's unwillingness to take their concerns seriously risks more than just the Liberal brand but the political loyalty of a generation that will define Canadian politics for decades to come.