Part 1: What Mulcair means for the youth vote
Part 2: What Trudeau means for the youth vote
There appears to be only one kind of student voting at Queen’s University: an “anything but Harper” voter.
With the election right around the corner, it seems as though a massive wave of young left-wing voices have risen up and engulfed all of the right-wing Harper supporters. Are Generation Ys redefining the political sphere in Canada? Is the Harper era finally coming to an end?
I personally have only encountered hostile, left-wing, progressive supporters at Queen’s. Why is it that right-wing, politically-minded students face an arsenal of attacks from the opposite side of the spectrum? It’s as if it’s a crime to associate yourself with the Conservative Party at Queen’s.
More and more, students are taking to social media and expressing their aggressive and forceful hate toward Harper. An anti-Harper movement has been snowballing for months now, gathering up young, progressive votes from all over the country.
But has anyone ever really stopped to take an objective view of Harper’s direct relevance to students here at Queen’s? Perhaps students are guilty of reading biased news outlets and succumbing to opinionated columns instead of assessing party platforms, reading news from all sides of the spectrum, extracting facts and making complete, concrete judgments for themselves.
If you want to understand what Harper’s Conservative government has to offer to you, you must look at what he’s done and recognize where he’s going.
To keep it short and sweet, Harper’s government has single-handedly tackled and upheld Canada’s economy as one of the strongest during an unstable world economic crisis. Even as the world recuperates from such a global financial hit, Canada has been able to grow and set a precedent on an international stage.
You may ask yourself, “How does this have an immediate effect on me?”
Well, think of the economy and the Canadian government as your parents and their spending habits. You grow up, get good grades and eventually graduate with a prestigious degree from Queen’s. You’re ready to take on the world, after all, the “world is your oyster.”
But wait, while you were away, grinding hard to get good grades and looking to land a steady, financially-sound job, your parents were out and about borrowing and spending all their money in hopes of making things “better” for you.
Now you’re all grown up, trying to raise a family of your own, your parents have retired. But wait, take another step back, what happens to all that money that your parents owed and spent? Who’s going to pay it back? You guessed it: you are. How though? If you have just kick-started your life, how are you supposed to pay back everything your parents owe?
It isn’t fair that you should have to pay for a massive debt that your parents dumped on you simply because they thought that spending on this and that would be good for you when in truth, you are left alone with a massive debt that will take years to pay off. The same goes for the government that we choose to elect in this upcoming election.
What many students don’t understand is that today’s decisions will have an even greater impact on tomorrow’s realities. The party in power will either set up this nation’s young people with a strong economy, or riddle them with debt. Your vote will help determine that outcome.
If elected, Harper’s Conservatives would seek to create 1.3 million jobs by 2020 and reduce small business taxes. Both these moves would be particularly beneficial for young people just entering the workforce.
Also of interest to young voters should be the Conservative’s plans for the environment — reducing Canada’s emissions by 30 per cent by 2030 — and for education, including equipping schools with more computers. The Conservative government has even taken a stance against taxing online streaming services and plans to improve internet across rural and remote parts of Canada.
While other parties have been trying to convince the youth vote that Harper doesn’t care about them, he’s been making plans to ensure that young Canadians inherit the best country possible.
Are you going to re-elect a proven, consistent government politics and invest for the future, or redefine Canadian?
Now is the time that student’s across Queen’s come together and vote.
Blake Del Brocco is a second-year political studies major.
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