In his column tonight, Bribes (Between The Lines Of Age) The LPC's Correct Tactical Choice, Evan Scrimshaw is writing about the Liberal decision to vote against the Bloc motion to raise Old Age Security and he gives us this gem of a paragraph.
I have seldom read anything clearer or more direct about how we boomers are distorting politics:
The old and the soon to be old are the most coddled political constituency. God Forbid we tell the boomers that their McMansions might see a triplex down the street, but the young had to sacrifice years of their lives to stop a virus that mostly didn’t affect them. Our benefit is a government that refuses to say they want lower house prices, because once again God forbid we dare anger the old. It’s nice to see the Liberals get that the old should be the ones to swallow an imperfect set of options for once.
He is, of course, correct -- boomers bought our first houses 50 years ago, and we paid less for them than what most cars cost today. Now houses cost 10 times more, which freezes millions of young people out of the housing market.
Scrimshaw continues to discuss how these younger voters might be turned back into Liberal voters:
Summing it up:...What the government needs to do from here is clear, at least to me. They need to lean into the framework of generational equity, they need to accept that many childless young are fucked right now, and use the fall to set up a 2025 budget that addresses their concerns....And this is at least a wedge issue where the Tories are on the wrong side and the Liberals are on the right one, and where the public actually believes it’s a live issue. The problem with the abortion rhetoric is that Canadians don’t think Poilievre would actually roll back rights. Here, we have a unanimous CPC vote we can use as proof.
And on a side note:The Liberals refusing to vote for another wealth transfer to boomers is the smartest thing they’ve done in years
— Evan Scrimshaw (@EScrimshaw) October 3, 2024
UNPRECEDENTED: Aging boomer retires to free up job for someone youngerhttps://t.co/q3re3QZbzD #biden #kamala pic.twitter.com/Gmf0povNLm
— The Beaverton (@TheBeaverton) July 21, 2024
If Kamala because the nominee this is the most Gen X way to do it with a supremely qualified Xer being kept at bay for years and then a boomer dropping the job on them with no warning.
— Cake or Death (@Johngcole) July 21, 2024
4 comments:
Here's a classic TorStar headline:
Canadians feel ‘betrayed’ by Harper move to change Old Age Security payments, emails show
The prime minister’s office was flooded with angry comments after he proposed making changes to retirement benefits.
Remind me again... who's more likely to vote, grandma or young Brianna?
If your retirement income gives you 75K you still get 700 OAS/month plus what ever CCP you earned . They too, if over 75, would get the "top up". On the other hand $1800/month can be a challenge by the time you are unable to do much yourself.
Just bring in mincome and have lil pp tearing out his hair.
Here are a couple of classic US ads that make my point:
Dear Young People, Don't Vote, and
Dear Young People, Don't Vote 2.0
Not sure if they've updated for this year, but great GOTV ads. Anyway, it's dangerous to f*ck with pension indexing for Boomers and Gen-Xers whose rising home value is their retirement nest egg.
Yes, Cap, I wonder whether younger people would respond to this, but I do think Scrimshaw identified a key issue -- in many ways, the young vs old dynamic is significant in our society now, and it will be until boomers like me have shuffled off this mortal coil.
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