FIRST READING: Canadian youth just keep getting more Conservative under Carney

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As to what’s driving the generational divide, young Canadians have been at the sharper end of some of Canada’s most conspicuous economic woes, be it rising rental prices or skyrocketing youth unemployment.

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The 18-29 cohort also neatly comprises a group of people most likely to have been affected by extended school shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. A 25-year-old voter would have been in Grade 11 when Canada first imposed major pandemic lockdowns in 2020.

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Young voters are also least likely to care about the one issue on which Carney has typically done best: U.S. relations and the tariffs imposed on Canada by U.S. President Donald Trump.

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An Abacus Data poll from last September, for instance, found that when respondents were asked about the greatest “threat” to Canada’s future, a majority of young voters readily identified “domestic problems” like health care and affordability, while a majority of voters over 60 instead identified “Trump’s policies and unpredictability.”

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At the very outset of the current trade war, in January 2025, a particularly illuminating Ipsos survey found that more than four in 10 Canadians aged 18 to 34 would endorse some kind of union with the United States if it meant access to comparative U.S. prosperity.

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Although 77 per cent of under-34 respondents initially said they would “never” vote for Canada to become part of the United States, that figure dropped to 43 per cent when they were offered the option of U.S. citizenship and the automatic conversion of their assets into U.S. dollars.

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Canada is not the only developed country to see a rightward shift among its youth, but Canada remains unique for producing younger voters who are consistently more conservative than older voters.

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In both the U.K. and U.S., for instance, polls continue to track the more conventional pattern of older voters leaning for right-wing options as younger voters lean for left-wing ones.

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In the upcoming U.S. midterm elections, for instance, voters under 29 were largely a lock for Democratic candidates, including those endorsed by the far-left Democratic Socialists of America.

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One of the few exceptions to the rule would be Japan, where conservative Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi won election last year thanks in part to an explosion of youth support, with some polls finding her with a 90 per cent approval rating among Japanese voters under 30.

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IN OTHER NEWS

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At the exact same time that the B.C. Conservatives appear to be suddenly poised to take power in B.C. after nine years of NDP government, the precise opposite seems to be happening in Alberta. The Alberta NDP is now tied with the incumbent UCP in a new poll by Janet Brown Opinion Research (both are polling at 35 per cent). The most likely reason for this being the issue of Alberta separatism, which is set for a preliminary referendum vote next month. (Voters will choose whether or not to hold a second vote on full independence). The UCP government of Premier Danielle Smith has come out strongly against separation, but the issue has lost her support on two fronts: Separatists who no longer support the UCP, and federalists who now see the UCP as too tainted by separatists. Luckily for Smith, however, her next election date isn’t for another year.

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On the left is the official photo released for the first leaders’ debates in the Quebec provincial election. That election’s likely winner, Parti Québécois’ Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, is the candidate on the far left of the group. If his gunslinger pose looks familiar, it’s likely because that’s also the pre-debate pose preferred by St-Pierre Plamondon’s federal equivalent, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet (see image at right). The stance has been well-documented by Quebec political watchers, but its precise origin and intent are still a mystery. Photo by Handout

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First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here.

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