Western Standard - September 07, 2023


Projections show Conservatives forming majority government with 179 seats...


Episode Stats

Length

5 minutes

Words per Minute

174.30954

Word Count

892

Sentence Count

55

Hate Speech Sentences

3


Summary

Support for the Liberal Party among voters in their 20s has been on the wane since mid-August. The party is losing ground to the Conservatives, who are gaining ground among those in their 30s and 40s. What s going on?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 There's no doubt. I mean, you live and die by the polls when you're in politics, whether you want
00:00:04.800 to admit it or not. They do their own internals, and it's true. Hey, if it could get this low after
00:00:09.840 two years, it can climb back up within two years. This doesn't necessarily mean something,
00:00:14.880 but it bodes terribly. As you said, it's a trend. This isn't an outlier. This isn't a spike.
00:00:19.520 It just continues to drift down. And as you said, it's one scandal or problem or misstep after
00:00:26.000 another. Chris, what do you see as standing out? I mean, it is a cumulative problem that's going on,
00:00:32.560 but it does seem to be accelerating lately too. What is it that's causing a more recent loss in
00:00:38.800 confidence and support for the Liberals in your view? Well, we can go to actually another poll that
00:00:45.840 we had last week about young voters, voters in their 20s, between 20 and 29. Predominantly,
00:00:52.800 they were liberal supporters. And it has just been, once again, a downward trend. So just from the
00:01:00.480 beginning of August to the last week of August, they went from 26% support with people in their 20s
00:01:08.800 all the way down to 16% in one month. And voters, those young liberal voters have been going both
00:01:16.800 directions. The NDP has about 31% support now in people in their 20s. But here's an astounding
00:01:23.440 number. The Conservatives are only almost at 40%. They're like 39.7%, I believe it was in the poll,
00:01:32.800 support among voters in their 20s. And I think it's because Pierre has been hammering on affordability
00:01:39.360 issues. And that is playing well with them, because, you know, their incomes are lower than
00:01:45.200 people in their 40s and 50s. So things are hitting them harder, and they're trying to get in the housing
00:01:50.240 market, and they can't. Because we're just not straight up not building enough houses for the amount
00:01:56.320 of people that we're bringing into the country and that are already here, we have been not building enough for
00:02:01.120 a long, long time. And it's a cumulative effect. And I honestly think it's, it's going to the grocery store
00:02:09.040 and the dream of buying a home is making a lot of voters in their 20s really disillusioned with the
00:02:14.960 Liberal Party, particularly the one led by Justin Trudeau. I don't think they feel that they can relate to
00:02:21.040 him in any way, shape or form presently. Yeah, and that's got to be making them sweat when a key component of
00:02:26.960 your base support is losing again, they're not losing support, you know, or further among people
00:02:32.000 who are already strong conservative demographics, it's the youth, that should make them sweat like
00:02:36.160 that was their stronghold. And yeah, I'm well past my 20s. But I remember it well, and you're,
00:02:42.480 you're full of ideals at that age, you know, and that's where you could vote based on those. But
00:02:46.480 you're also your wallet tends to be pretty empty. My 20s, I mean, times were tight, you got the young
00:02:51.280 kids in the house, you're, you're still building up your, your fortune, whatever it may be,
00:02:55.680 furniture and paying off a car and so on. You're very sensitive to cost of living issues. And you
00:03:02.560 often don't necessarily have a big buffer to get you through spikes or times when it's going high. So,
00:03:07.920 you know, they don't, they're not feeling I think that the Trudeau government can turn this around.
00:03:13.360 I think that's part of what's really changing that for the youth right now.
00:03:16.080 Oh, I'm sure it is. And you know, the question that that raises is, will the old liberal tactics
00:03:23.040 work? In the past, in past elections, they have trotted out the purple dinosaur arguments.
00:03:32.720 You know what I'm talking about. I remember it well, yes. Okay. And they would want,
00:03:37.920 they would love to be able to say that the conservative leader is, you know, he's a closet
00:03:45.840 pro-choice, pro-life advocate, and that, you know, gay marriage will be under attack if he's elected
00:03:56.720 prime minister. Well, you know, Pierre Polliver, I mean, not the social conservatives like him for this,
00:04:02.480 but Pierre Polliver has made it very clear that he is pro-choice. He went out and actually said he is.
00:04:09.680 He didn't kind of beat around the bush and say, well, I, you know, I personally am pro-life, but I wouldn't legislate,
00:04:15.360 which is what conservative leaders tend to say. He said he's pro-choice. Well, there goes that issue.
00:04:22.960 You're not going to be able to run a campaign of innuendo based on that. So what about other aspects
00:04:29.360 of social conservatism? Well, you know, he has a very diverse caucus. Let's put it that way.
00:04:35.280 And again, you know, if the liberals try to make that an issue, he can just put certain people on
00:04:43.440 center stage and they don't have to say whether they, you know, what particular aspect of diversity
00:04:50.320 they represent. They just, everybody knows what they stand for. So there goes that. So, you know,
00:04:57.040 what are they going to do? Are they going to try and claim he's actually a Russian agent? You know,
00:05:01.040 it worked for, worked on Trump, I guess, but you know, could it work on Pierre Pullover? Where do
00:05:05.760 these people go?