Voter turnout for the 2015 federal election was at its highest since 1993. This was also the year Canadians, especially millennials under 30, voted strategically in record-breaking numbers: not along party lines but along policy initiatives.
One of the most galvanizing issues was climate change.
Canadians between 18 and 30 years old are making their values around sustainability heard, and the ballot box is just one of the tools they use.
Andrew Frank is a communications consultant in environmental stewardship and public policy. He lectures on social entrepreneurship, environmental issues and public relations at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, an experience that led him to contribute to the strategic voting effort in the province.
“I am not a member of a political party,” he wrote in a Huffington Post article at the time. “I am a progressive British Columbian willing to roll up my sleeves and support the candidates and policies I believe in, recognizing there are many shared values and policies between the parties.”
And millennials in B.C. and across Canada answered the call. The youth vote last October was up by nearly 12 per cent over the 2011 election.
While older generations have tended to cast the climate struggle as a political choice between business and the environment, 18 to 30 year olds are increasingly countering that dichotomy.
Among millennials in particular, “there's a very rational response to the science of climate change,” Frank tells Clean Capital, “which is that we must strike a balance between climate stewardship and economic prosperity that is itself rooted in science.”
Vancouver’s Nick Hermes exemplifies this impulse. The UBC Engineering major founded Urban Stream in 2009 to help restaurants streamline food composting by setting up a “micro-farm” in their back yards.
But as he tells the Tyee, Hermes revised his business model to align the economics of his enterprise with environmental accountability. “It was a very niche product with a high price point," he says.
Now Hermes rents out his compost system, allowing restaurants to break down food scraps at a subsidized price and selling the nutrient-rich castings to local farms, calling it “a sustainable solution marketed as an economic solution."
Many Canadian millennials are of a like mind. According to a Pembina Institute survey, 42 per cent of British Columbians between the age of 18 and 34 “strongly agree” that the province is in a position to mitigate climate change and create job opportunities at the same time compared to about 32 per cent among those 35 and older.
By 2036, Canadians aged 55 and over will form 37 per cent of the population, compared to about 31 per cent in 2015. And this population gap in Canada is growing faster than ever.
The influx of older millennials will mean grassroots actors like Frank and Hermes will have a greater role in shaping policy. As with Urban Stream and the 2015 federal election, ideological barriers may prove less of an issue when millennials occupy positions in industry and higher government as they build towards social and environmental equity in decades to come.
By Arman Kazemi, June 9, 2016