Compared to their adult counterparts, young Canadians are happy campers

TORONTO – Jamieson Aelick is focused: on getting into university, learning to drive and making the most of his time in high school.

The Alliston, Ont., native is 17 years old. He knows he’ll finish school in a few years, start a career and move out on his own.

He’s heard about economic troubles from Greece to the United States. But he isn’t worried.

“The government prevented this from happening in Canada. So we’re pretty confident that they are going to make the right decisions and if they make the wrong decisions, they will certainly be held accountable,” he said.

Aelick’s trust in the government aligns with the majority of young Canadians.

High school students across the country say they’re content with Canada’s government and federal decision-making, according to a new poll conducted by Civix, a national organization that fosters youth interest in democracy.

The pollsters’ data, obtained exclusively by Global News, was revealed days before Ottawa unveils its 2013 budget.

The survey asked 4,425 students from grades 7 to 12 for their opinions on the federal government, how funding should be allocated in the upcoming budget and if they think the issues important to them are getting the attention they want.

In much of this survey, these kids’ opinions are right in line with older generations. But they appear to be more content with the status quo.

Goldilocks generation

Sixty-nine per cent of the high-schoolers surveyed say they think Canada’s going in the right direction, well over adults’ 61 per cent.

At 68 per cent, youth are also more likely to think the government plays just the right role – not too big, not too small – in Canadians’ lives. Only 55 per cent of adults felt the same way.

These kids are also easier on federal political parties than their parents’s generation: More than 40 per cent of the teens surveyed said they’re satisfied with the way major parties represent them.

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This disparity between the two age groups is linked to the amount of interaction they have with the government, according to Dr. Jon Pammett, a political science professor at Carleton University.

“These young people are pretty darn conventional – if anything they are more satisfied than adults. They’re less cynical … and they are more trusting,” he told Global News.

But as they get older, they may regard governments and politicians with closer scrutiny. With their tax dollars on the line, Pammett said, they have more reason to disagree with the government’s spending.

“People become much more aware of services – maybe they draw on the health care system more and find it less than satisfactory. They notice government actions that might affect the job market or their own wellbeing,” he said.

Youth tend to be on the receiving end of government services, notes University of Toronto political scientist Peter Loewen, without yet having to contribute themselves.

“Young people are some of the principle benefactors of effective government,” Loewen notes. “They attend public schools, their tuition is deeply subsidized and they’ve not yet begun paying substantial taxes. From that perspective, why wouldn’t they be happy with what government is doing?”

Aelick agrees.

“We don’t have to deal with tax, we don’t have to deal with government agencies so much because our parents deal with that,” he said. “Our lives are not really affected by the government insomuch as us directly dealing with them – we don’t even vote until we get into grade 12. We don’t have enough interaction that it becomes ignorant. And ignorance is bliss.”

Regional angst

But some Canadian kids are happier than others – and location had a lot to do with their level of contentment.

Eighty-three per cent of Albertan students surveyed think Canada’s on the right track, compared with 55 per cent of Quebec respondents.

“The Quebec political scene is in considerable disarray at the moment and there are a number of issues, at least in Quebec provincial politics, that involves students or younger people,” Pammett said.

Prominent among them is Quebec’s so-called “Maple Spring” – sometimes-violent demonstratopns that sprung up around several campuses as students protested tuition hikes that would raise university fees by 75 per cent over the course of five years, but which the (then-Liberal, now Parti Quebecois) government says are necessary to keep post-secondary education up to par. Thousands of people were arrested in the wake of the nasty confrontation between police and students.

Add to that the Charbonneau Commission, whose high-profile investigation into municipal corruption must have had an effect, Loewen said.

“It’s unsurprising that Quebecers are more skeptical about government.”

Lower voting age, higher turnout?

Pammett suggests that, ultimately, teens are happy with the government because they don’t know much about it: They aren’t interested or well-versed in politics.

“I would say that it is probably, for a lot of young people, a surrogate for not paying much attention,” he said.

This satisfaction may not translate into votes as these students get older: Youth voter turnout is low, and getting lower.

“At any given time, young people have always voted less than their parents. What is worrying, though, is that they are now voting substantially less than their parents did when they were young,” Loewen explained.

“This is not just a stage-in-life thing. Instead, this generation of young people is less electorally engaged than ever.”

Pammett says officials should consider lowering the voting age to get students into the habit of voting in high school.

“Research has found that if people don’t vote in the early opportunities they have been given, then the chances of them starting later on is lower,” Pammett said.

“If the habit of not voting is engrained then it’s much harder to start.”