My son isn’t overly political but as a young person trying to get ahead, he wasn’t in the best of moods last Monday night.
He had come over for dinner and given it was the day of the federal election, we turned on the TV to watch the results roll in. When it became clear the Liberals were on their way to another minority government, he got visibly upset.
My wife and I tried to give him the life-will-go-on speech, you know the one that’s trotted out in the wake of all kinds of setbacks and typically includes a reference to the sun rising the next day.
He wasn’t buying it. He told us that we didn't get it, that we don’t understand how difficult it is for young people to get ahead these days. In fairness to us old folks, I think we do have some idea, but given we’re not living it on a daily basis, we recognize that we can’t fully comprehend how that struggle must feel.
He has a good job, works hard and makes a good salary. He makes contributions to the company pension plan and even invests a little every month into a fund that’s earmarked for a down payment on a place of his own. He's doing all the right things, but isn’t seeing the fruits of that labour.
At 27, he was looking for some hope and thought this election might be able to provide that through a change in government in Ottawa. He reasoned that a decade of Liberal rule had got us to this point, so it was high time to give someone else a chance to fix the mess.
When it became clear the Liberals would retain power, the prospect of four more years of the status quo was too much to take and he couldn’t keep the frustration inside any longer.
It’s hard to blame him given his generation has watched the Canadian dream slip from its grasp due to an affordability crisis, particularly when it comes to that most basic of needs: housing. Yes, I know I’m sounding like a Pierre Poilievre commercial, but there’s much truth to what the Conservative leader had to say during the campaign.
The ironic part about my son’s election night reaction is that although he leans to the right, it wasn’t the defeat of the Conservatives that bothered him as much as it was the hopeless feeling of what another four years of Liberal governance would mean for him.
Like so many others, he just wants life to be more affordable in Canada, and he doesn’t really care which party makes that happen.
After a day of reflection, during which the sun did indeed rise, he had come to accept Mark Carney’s election victory. On our way to the Cavalry FC game at Spruce Meadows that evening, he said it was time for ‘Mr. Harvard Economics’ to make good on his campaign promises to make life more affordable for Canadians.
He’s willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it’s a short leash because hope is running thin for the younger generation.
