Amaya K, Bogdan K, Allie P and R A Costeau spoke with Martin LeBrun.
Vancouver youth agree that there are positives about living in Canada: healthcare, vast natural beauty and, if you have a regular paycheque, a glut of consumer products. But increasingly inaction on climate change, falling living standards, work stress and alienation are making young people anxious about their futures.
There’s real “existential dread” amongst young people over seemingly inescapable climate change, says Nicholas. “West coast forest fire ‘smoke seasons’ are becoming the new normal.” There’s a sense of fatalism, but also a sense of “We gotta do something!”
Today’s youth are also Canada’s first generation whose living standards are worse than those of their parents.“Given the difficulty of finding a well-paying job, everything is expensive: housing, education, etc.,” says Bogdan. For Nicholas, “the idea of ever owning a home is very distant, even if you come from a relatively wealthy family.” “Transit is expensive given the low minimum wage,” says Amaya.“You have to work for half an hour just for the privilege of going to work.” “It’s impossible to work, study and have a social life that are in balance,” says Allie.
Raised in Serbia, Bogdan is taken aback by the degree of mental health issues among Canadian youth. “Culturally, there seems to be no real attempt to deal with it. People are much more individualized, isolated.” This isolation extends into workplaces. Amaya finds it strange that “Canadians don’t like sharing the details of their wages and conditions, even though this can help workers put demands on their boss.”
All agree that young people can make a difference. For Nicholas, “Collectively, young people have tremendous power. We need to become active as we can to build a new society whose objective is satisfying needs rather than profits.”
Bogdan agrees, “young people need to go to the root of today’s problems. They aren’t apathetic, but rather lack awareness of possibilities; we should look beyond social media chatter. Reading Canadian labour history, we can see that with proper mobilizing, people can fight and win. The post-war generation’s activism did not achieve all of its goals but resulted in major changes as they looked beyond their current system. Cynicism kills action. We need an alternative. Since Occupy, it’s encouraging to see people talking about class issues and US politicians like Bernie Sanders are part of a new debate about going beyond just taxing the rich.”
Socialist Alternative Youth will be organizing on the streets and on campuses to move the debate forward on what kind of Canada and world is both possible and necessary: a socialist one.
To find out more about Socialist Alternative Youth: [email protected]
