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After a few years trailing the Conservatives, the Liberal Party is in the lead among young voters – and at least one political youth group is clear about what it wants the party to do with that support.
New polling by Abacus Data found the Liberals have taken the lead among voters aged 18 to 30. On March 31, Angus Reid published similar findings that show an upswing of support for the Liberal party — in both men and women aged 18 to 35 — compared to this time last year.
Jaden Braves, CEO and founder of the youth-led non-profit Young Politicians of Canada, says the shift makes sense to him. Canadians of all ages were tired of former prime minister Justin Trudeau. Along with being a fresh face, Prime Minister Mark Carney has “a huge amount of experience” after leading the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, he said.
In an April 3 report, the group published highlighted 11 priorities ahead of the federal election, including more accessible education, the climate crisis, unemployment, affordable housing, integration of AI and eliminating boil-water advisories on reserves.
The main undercurrent through most of the priorities is “making sure we have fundamental human rights,” Braves said.
“That means clean water on reserves. That means reinvesting and solving the climate crisis.”
To Alex Marland, a professor of Canadian politics at Acadia University, there is a simple reason younger voters are shifting their voting intention to the Liberals.
“They, like many other Canadians, are gravitating toward the Liberals … as a hedge against Donald Trump and his tariffs,” Marland said.
Mexico and Canada were excluded from the Trump administration’s most recent round of tariffs but trade disputes between Canada and the US have dominated the news cycle for months, making it a key election issue.
The Liberals have the momentum, but it's early in the election cycle and momentum can switch at any time, he said. And, the leaders’ debates are still to come — in French on April 16 and English on April 17 — both in Montreal.
Typically, anything happening before the leaders’ debates is known as “the phony war” in political science circles, Marland said.
“All these things are happening and people aren't really paying attention, and they don't really pay attention until there's what's known as a ‘focusing event’ that causes everyone to pay attention … to start making up their mind,” Marland said. Usually, that event is the leaders’ debate. Maybe not this time.
“What's different about this campaign is it almost feels like the focusing event has happened. The focusing event that gets everyone to pay attention is Donald Trump.”
Angus Reid’s March 31 poll has Carney leading across almost all demographics, with the exception of men aged 35-54.
Natasha Bulowski / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer
Comments
Men aged 35-54 need to listen to their wives or girlfriends because they will tell you who the best 'guy' is and you know you should believe them because they chose you right? Sad to say that this demographic was probably the main age group of the illegal Convoy that blocked the bridges and Parliament Hill years ago. They were roiled up by an angry, unhappy man that wanted them to share his misery. Look in the mirror and around you right now because the only thing to be unhappy about is how our supposed best friend in the world is damaging our economy on purpose. MAGA does not mean make america great again, it now means Make America Go Away.
Indeed they should, I will admit, when it comes to doing or running things, women are much better at it than men. Not to say that men can't do well, just compare Poilievre and Carney, the former zero history running anything & a slogan expert, the latter with real-world economic experience & history handle economies successfully. It's clear who would ensure Canada rides through the current crisis smoother. Poilievre has too many ties with oil & gas and unhinged Danielle Smith, so you have an idea where his priorities lie.
The convoy clowns are still conservative supporters or worse yet, supporters of the useless PPC party that has sprung up. Nothing will change their mind, and they will continue to bash, and insult anyone with a different view. The same group again blame everyone else for their own failures than look in the mirror at where the real problem lays.
I wonder if the fact that young women never hopped on the Poilievre bandwagon had more to do with with "Creep Radar" alarms going off than policy per se. I would not be surprised to see at least the under 35 male vote shift towards the Liberals, hopefully the 35 to 50 graphic will as well. Really all the "Conservatives" should get is the incel vote.
I will vote Liberal to keep PP out and help Carney stand up to trump. That said building more pipelines is not the way to deal with the climate crisis Mr. Carney! let's build east to west electrical transmission lines instead.
Hopefully he gets a super majority and then we shall see what he rolls out. He'll be spending not like lil' pp and his extreme austerity he will manner us with trying to convince us we 'can't afford any of it'.
Amen to that.