Youth should be seen not just as leaders of tomorrow but also as leaders of today, Justin Trudeau told a forum at the University of Saskatchewan Sept. 28.
“Unfortunately, the connection isn’t there between young people and politics,” said the Quebec MP and eldest son of former prime minster Pierre Trudeau.
“If young people are sometimes apathetic and cynical, it’s not because they don’t care about the world, it’s because you care so much but you are frustrated that you are not getting heard.”
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The 38-year-old is considered to be a potential leader within the Liberal Party. Much of his support will have to come from a younger generation.
“If I can continue to draw the confidence of young people, of people who didn’t really know my father, then I know that I am doing something right and that I am not riding on any name,” he said.
Trudeau cited the Liberal party’s vision for a more inclusive and less divisive Canada in which more young people will want to get involved.
“The challenges that we are facing in the coming years will require us to draw the very best and the brightest youth forward,” he said.
“We need to make sure that all of you get the chance to be the best and the brightest. Our capacity to challenge the status quo, to rethink our society will come from all of you.”
L.J. Schmitt, a University of Saskatchewan student whose family farms near Oxbow, Sask., felt that Trudeau’s message could resonate with younger rural voters.
“I think [the Liberals] have a chance of gaining some traction, especially because this younger generation is coming into politics without any preconceived notions about what the different parties are and what the parties represent,” said Schmitt, a New Democratic Party supporter.
Trudeau addressed rural issues, including the long gun registry that many people in rural communities oppose.
Although regarded as “Toronto elites coming to take away rural people’s guns,” he believes it’s a policy that doesn’t have to be divisive.
“I’m a gun owner … I was raised around guns,” Trudeau said. “[They are] a part of Canadian reality and will always be a part of Canadian reality.”
The Liberals’ rural platform includes keeping the gun registry, getting more broadband internet access, recruiting more doctors, giving tax credits to volunteer firefighters and establishing a national food policy.
