All Posts Tagged With: "apathy"
What Jack Layton’s death means for young Canadians
Urback: I didn’t vote for Jack, but I did respect him.
Photo courtesy of Medmoiselle T on Flickr
I have never voted for the NDP. Before the May federal election, when the NDP surprised us with 30 per cent of the vote, I fleetingly considered supporting Jack Layton’s New Democrats, but couldn’t swallow his proposals for spending and tax increases. Jack seemed like a good enough guy, but for mostly fiscal reasons, I didn’t want him running the country.
As someone who never supported Jack politically, and honestly, likely would not have if he were able to run again, I still feel his death is sorrowful loss for young Canadians. Despite being in his sixties, Jack was indisputably the best of the federal leaders at connecting with the nation’s youth. He reached out to us despite our record of poor turnout at the polls. For this reason, Jack transcended party lines as a man who spoke to Canadian youths.
Jack Layton’s record with the under-30 crowd started when he was as a city councillor in Toronto. He was known to always save time for questions from young journalists during scrums and worked directly with university students on local issues that they cared passionately about, even those as seemingly insignificant as saving a couple of Victorian homes. Later, as federal leader of the NDP, Layton spoke directly to Canadian young people through venues such as Much on Demand, encouraging engagement, interaction, and faith in the political system. And then, of course, there was his final letter to Canadians, in which he penned a paragraph specifically to Canada’s youth, expressing his “belief in [their] power to change this country and the world.”
Political pandering is often a deliberate, pragmatic process, which is why so few politicians give youth the time of day. With such poor voter turnout among 18 to 25-year-old Canadians, other parties think it’s better to spend the campaign retirement home-hopping than wasting an afternoon on a university campus. But for Jack, it didn’t seem to matter.
I didn’t always agree with what Jack said, but I did always appreciate the fact that he was trying to speak to me. I’m not going to fawn, nor do the opposite and don a silly wig while making a grotesque statement about “National Necrophilia Week” like Ezra Levant. But I will say that Layton’s death means young Canadians of all stripes have lost an important federal advocate. I may not have given him my vote, but he did have my respect, and that’s because I’m pretty sure the feeling was mutual.
Putting apathy on the other foot
Why are party leaders ignoring a group that is ripe for the political moulding?
I have to admit, I’m more than a little annoyed at the lack of attention the federal leaders are giving youth voters this election.
In an age where young people are not only really easy to reach — through avenues like social media — but they are now showing they want to be reached, it’s mind-boggling how little Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton are taking advantage of this demographic. What does a young person have to do to get Ottawa’s attention?
Everyone has been talking about how this is the election to reach youth. It all started with Rick Mercer’s early call to arms. “If you are between the age of 18 and 25 and you want to scare the hell out of the people that run this country this time around, do the unexpected [and] vote,” he challenged on March 28.
And since then, the youth of this country have answered.
Every day I come across article after article, or YouTube video after YouTube video, of youth proclaiming their engagement. They want to connect with the political parties and they want to participate in democracy is the overwhelming message from young people across this country.
And it’s not just youth making themselves heard. The media is giving attention to the youth vote, political groups are giving attention to the youth vote, it virtually seems that everyone in Canada is paying attention to what young voters are doing and saying, except the people who should be paying attention the most — the leaders.
On top of their seeming apathy towards a population that holds quite a bit of sway in some ridings, what’s worse is the increasing number of stories like these, making it seem as though politicians are actively trying to turn young people off voting.
When you combine this behaviour with no mention of student issues at the English leaders’ debate, limited post-secondary education platform promises from most parties and a clear lack of engagement across the board, it’s any wonder there are any young voters left who give a damn. And I’m not convinced youth turning out in droves on May 2 is going to curb any of this current counter-apathy when we undoubtedly end up back at the polls in a year or two as seems to be the trend in this country.
Has apathy been prorogued?
Students’ engagement with abstract political issues faces a test this week
Unless you live under a rock off campus, someone has probably informed you that federal Parliament has been prorogued, and that this raises various concerns about constitutional law, democratic process, legitimate governance…or not. More likely you’ve just heard about this prorogue thing in terms that suggests it’s bad. Because going any further than that requires a very involved discussion.
I won’t attempt to summarize the running dialogue on exactly what it means that Parliament has been prorogued. There is a huge amount of news coverage available on the topic. But it is highly significant that a lot of the energy and organization against this action, by the government, is based on and around Canada’s post-secondary campuses.
All of this is leading up to protests planned across Canada (and in some cases abroad) this Saturday. Will they materialize? Will they be well attended? Will they be significant enough to gain some attention and coverage, competing as they are with the disaster in Haiti and the political realignment occurring in the U.S.? Side note there, by the way. If the issue loses to Haiti that’s entirely justified. People are dying over there. But if folks would rather read about Obama than take the time to think about our own government that’s rather sad.
Any time students seem to get excited about something it raises questions about just how real and genuine it is, at the grassroots level. The CFS can usually manage some kind of a demonstration around tuition — but we all know those are fairly well stage-managed and they go directly to students’ self-interests. Meanwhile, the much talked-about walk out by Ontario college students barely materialized at all. And yet, when student anger does solidify it can be very powerful indeed. Vietnam War era protests come to mind. There was even a shadow of that around the invasion of Iraq.
Complicating this long-standing question of just how angry students really are, and how to tell when they’re serious, is the new phenomenon of social media. As Obama’s campaign demonstrated, social media and digital communities can certainly be rallied to produce tangible and dramatic results. At the same time, thousands of people in a Facebook group can produce the illusion of a movement with no real substance. And as heavy adopters and users of social media, it’s hard to know when students are seriously pissed off and when a lot of them have simply joined a digital fad.
One thing is for certain. The organizers of these protests and the promoters of this issue have succeeded, at least, in getting “prorogue” into the public vocabulary. And that’s no simple feat. Their campaign for attention has been effective and clever. But the test is this Saturday. Will it translate into real bodies? Will people stand in the cold and give real voice to their displeasure, or is this popular discontent only sufficient to prompt the creation of Facebook groups? Because it still comes down to that. Without feet on the street no one will care.
Personally, I’m hoping for a large turn-out. Not merely because of my position on the issue, but because I’d like to believe that students do have the capacity to become active and engaged over such an abstract issue. Students pissed off about the cost of their tuition isn’t news and in fact it’s barely political engagement. It’s just obvious self-interest made manifest. Students pissed off about the state of their democracy — now that’s pretty cool.
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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.
Apparently, they don’t care.
It’s hard to jump into an electoral system where you feel worthless and ignored
Fellow blogger Jeff Rybak thinks young people are being labeled apathetic when it comes to politics and don’t deserve it. He suggests that these new forms of connecting and networking, which we value more than voting, are the start of something new and big.
I hope he’s right, because I’m a big pile of disenchanted with Canadian politics, and I’m only 18 years old. Here is something I wrote back in June, when Iggy was threatening to throw a hissy over employment insurance and send Canadians to the polls. I thought I’d share it in response to Jeff’s comments:
Last time there was an election, I missed voting in it by 33 days. As someone who was raised in a government town by parents who work in government and politics, I’ve been waiting for it to be my turn to vote for a long time. I was 10 when I started watching the West Wing and even younger when I sat at my dining room table during dinner parties, listening to my parents and their friends discuss politics. I willed my brain to absorb every mysterious, exciting word of it – and gradually, it started to work. Unfortunately, I couldn’t will my birthday a month earlier.
As the election approached, I realized that a lot of my friends were planning not to vote. Mostly they were lazy, or busy; the registration centre was outside our campus bubble. A lot of people had been so swept up in first year stuff that they had no time to keep track of real world stuff. They didn’t know the issues, they told me, so why vote?
I do see the issue with uninformed voters casting ballots to whichever candidate’s name sticks best in their mind. I didn’t argue with them. At least they’re informed enough to know they don’t know, right? But that idea still didn’t feel right. Didn’t that drive them crazy? Didn’t they want to know? No matter what, I just couldn’t find a way to support someone’s excuse not to vote. I WISH I could vote, I kept lamenting. I momentarily thought about vote swapping, like Donna did on the West Wing when she accidentally voted Republican, only, in this case, I’d get someone to vote the way I would have voted because they didn’t care
This week when the news started up about a possible summer election, I started to feel excited while everyone else groaned. Sure, no one really wants an election – but when is a good time of year, exactly? For me, summer is perfect – I have more free time to stay up-to-date, I’m in my home riding, it’ll be easier to register when I have someone to drive me there. I even know where the neighbourhood polling station is.
But… who would I vote for? The more I think about it, the more I feel just as disenchanted as my peers. Sure, there are ideas that I believe in and I want to elect a government who shares my values, but the issues that are most important to me aren’t on the map. Because I’m a student. Because no one cares that I’m paying way too much money, money I don’t currently have, for my education so I can support them later. Because students don’t vote. And suddenly, I see it. There it is. It’s a vicious circle.
The U.S. presidential election pulled it out last year with record numbers of students voting and participating in campaigning. One poll last October reported a ridiculous percentage of Canadians would give up their vote in the next Canadian election in order to vote in the American election. And here we are, standing in the shadow of the threat of a summer election with zero wind in our sails. You would think that the parties would have noticed by now how good it can get when you get students – or anyone – excited.
Maybe it’s a problem with our election system; because elections tend to be more reactionary, there’s less room for setting an agenda. Maybe we students need to get off our butts and be less apathetic and set the agenda. Maybe it’s impossible, at least for now. But I don’t want to lose interest, I want to have something to get excited about. I want someone to talk to me, not down to me. I want someone to fight for my vote. I want to feel like my vote is worth something to someone.
Who knows if there will be an election this summer – right now it seems like the Liberals are backing down. Who knows… and who cares.
