The supposed youth vote should cost more than a dime bag of weed
By Rachel Braeuer
Photos by Gary Lim
I’m too old to smoke pot anymore. Or maybe it’s too strong. Either way, it’s not like high school where you could share a joint with a friend and talk about what colour you’d be if you were a colour. Don’t get me wrong, on a whim it’s cool to just sit around my house, mindlessly eating Smartfood pop corn and watching TV followed by a rousing nap, but if I’m in public I start to reenact Louis CK’s bit about smoking pot in Kansas City. Maybe that’s why the Young Liberal’s “keep calm and legalize it” posters and bottle opener key chains struck a nerve with me. The “legalize it” campaign is a cheap way to pander to the youth vote without having to offer anything substantial to young people in Canada.
A lot gets said about the youth vote in Canada close to election time, but for the most part, nobody really gives a shit about us three out of every four years. The Liberals are smart to try to capitalize on that population in the mean time, but what do they have to offer besides a knock off of “keep calm and carry on”? Besides legal pot, it would seem like the answer is “nothing.” Checking the Liberal’s three key websites, their only real sentiment is how much Harper sucks, a tactic that worked really well for them in the last election. Health care? Yeah, it’s a good thing. Education? Yeah, people should have access to that. The best part, though, is their claim that they want to keep B.C.’s coast clear of crude oil tanker transit, when essentially they’ve just said, “Well, if you toss enough money our way, it might be worth our while.” That is not the radical spirit expressed by Trudeau when he placed a moratorium on tanker transit in ‘72; it’s just sad.
Remember Trudeau? Probably not, I barely do. But I remember the things he did, because they were worthwhile, and I know the things he said, because they’re worth repeating. He told a nation that he didn’t care what they did in their bedrooms, he penned our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and he gave a bus full of people the finger without giving a single fuck that people were photographing the whole thing. Layton was a pretty badass guy, too. He never got his moment the way Trudeau did, but he affected the same charm. We were captivated by them, not for their policies, but by their realness. You never felt stupid while listening to them talk politics, you felt glad that someone was finally just telling it like it was, and more importantly was acknowledging you, your life, your work, and your needs.
If the Liberals want to achieve the kind of popularity they had previously, they’re going to have to give us something better than legal marijuana, crappy posters, bottle openers, and Bob Rae. I’m taking the bottle opener, but I’m not voting for you unless you give me a legitimate reason to believe you might actually do something different.
