Youth + politics = oil + water?

As you may be aware, yours truly participated in Me to We day this past week. I was thrilled to find out that despite being a volunteer at a booth outside of the Ricoh arena, I was still allowed to watch the majority of the speakers perform. I was even more thrilled to find out that Justin Trudeau would be speaking and that I would have time to stop and listen to him.

First of all, understand that he has a presence and it's an even bigger one in person than on television. He is absolutely mind-blowing to listen to in person! Justin managed to hook me into his speech (see clip 6) right from the beginning:

"As my good friend John Turner, former prime minister, just said: 'young people don't tend to get involved enough in politics.' And for me it's easy to say 'it's young people's fault not to get involved,' but more I think it's politics' fault not doing enough to bring in young people."

I did listen to his entire speech, but that first point of his got me thinking. It's true that youth aren't really involved in politics. I'm only getting into it now myself because I am of an age where I'll be taking all of the big life steps soon (e.g. buying a house, getting married) and the way that the country is run will affect me more profoundly than it previously did. When I first went to university, I saw politics as something that you were interested when you were older because there was no way that any politician would've cared about my opinion.

After listening to Justin's speech, I realize that I was probably right at that point, however students entering university now thinking what I did are probably wrong. As the baby boomers age, the political arena is going to undergo a drastic change and (hopefully) be more youth-friendly.

The beginnings of these changes can be seen today: Justin Trudeau was elected MP in the Montreal riding of Papineau on October 14th. Today's youth will be looking to Justin to increase awareness of the issues close to their hearts in the political arena and at the country-wide level. Justin Trudeau is a well known activist for many different issues, in particular the empowerment of youth. I believe that Justin is just the man to be getting youth more involved with politics and how the country is run.

Justin is a new breed of politician who listens to all generations and is more than willing to dive in and get his hands dirty. All too often, I've felt that my representative didn't represent my ideas and views and that I probably wouldn't be listened to because I am so young. Justin Trudeau's ideas of "building personal connections" is exactly what I think politics should be all about. Hopefully he can spread his ideals around in the political arena and they finally get picked up by the other powers that be.