Are we millennials too busy for democracy?

I absolutely despise the “blaming the millennials for everything” rhetoric (like this video that went viral last year does). We are not notably worse than any other generation, maybe worse off, if anything. The fact is we face unique challenges, living in a fast-paced world that we don’t fully understand while being represented by an older generation that grew up in a completely different reality and are dangerously out of touch with the challenges faced by those of us who are just starting out. This talk by Adam Conover talks a lot about the concept of generations and has a lot to do with this. 

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That being said, we really screw up on this one:

This video is on point. Even though it is about the American midterm elections,  It is a slap on the face of a good half of the Canadian Millennials that complain about the current state of things, but don’t cast a ballot. To be fair, the 18-24-year-old vote increased 18.3 points last federal election, but you can only legalize cannabis once (we hope). The video is good because it is true, and it makes anyone who hasn’t voted feel bad about themselves, or at least it should. 

I went out volunteering on election Monday: I spent the afternoon on the phone pulling votes for City Council candidate Ana Bailão in Portuguese and English, due to the large Brazilian and Portuguese population in  Ward 9 - Davenport. I had people who seemed confused, people who said they had already voted (but can we trust them?) people who thanked me and left support messages to the candidate, but also people who were just rude, and often hung up. My thought when they hang up is always “hum, I guess they are too busy for democracy today.” Meanwhile, I met this 79-year-old Brazilian immigrant, who has voted in every single election since she became a citizen and volunteers in local, provincial and federal campaigns every year. Ana won, with over 80% of the vote there. I was happy, she’s a Portuguese immigrant, female, liberal and a strong advocate for affordable housing and better public transit. That is as much as I know about her, but it seems like we can always use one of those in politics 

But John Tory also won. And Tory thinks that the city is “doing well.” Ask any Torontonian between 18 and 24 going to post-secondary, riding the TTC, paying rent and income taxes while making minimum wage and they will beg to disagree. I fear we are just getting more of the same old same from this “leadership that works.” The problem is just that: we need better than something that just “works,” we need to think more about the future, our future..

Jennifer Keesmaat, the more progressive opponent had less than 25 per cent of the vote,  maybe because most people seem to be too busy to think about the future. But we millennials care about the future: affordable housing, employment, global warming - these are all our generation’s problems. But we don’t vote. We are too busy complaining about it on blog posts and trying to keep our personal boats afloat. Old people vote, for their own reasons, to address their own concerns - and so should we. 

Freedom of religion and gender expression? Different people sharing public spaces? A robust mass transit system? Hell yeah, sign me up!! pic.twitter.com/4D1dkTFX3h

— Gus (@splgus) October 31, 2018