Trudeau delivers ‘Gen Z budget’: POLITICO
Canada’s finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, delivered a federal budget Tuesday aimed squarely at financially anxious millennial and Gen Z voters, stuffed with measures aimed at the affordability of housing and raising children.
When the youthful Trudeau swept into office in 2015, he wooed young voters with the promise of legalizing marijuana and making radical changes to the way Canadians vote. (He delivered on the first one but abandoned the second.)
Back in 2015, the numbers were staggering. Fifty-nine percent of voters aged 18-24 cast a ballot that year, up 18 points from the previous election. Abacus Data reported at the time that Liberals scooped up 45 percent of them.
The Liberals are now bleeding those voters badly.
On the heels of a punishing pandemic, sky-high interest rates have spiked mortgage payments for millennials who snuck into the market — and pushed homeownership out of reach for younger families eager to enter it. Persistent inflation has young parents staring down high grocery bills that aren’t coming down.
Last summer, as ascendant Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre promised lower taxes and bigger paychecks, young people appeared to be listening.
By the end of August, Poilievre had won many of them over.
Trudeau’s Liberals now wallow in third place at 23 percent, by Abacus’ measure. Thirty-three percent of voters aged 18-34 supported the Conservatives. Twenty-six percent sided with Jagmeet Singh’s left-wing New Democratic Party.