Why Millennial and Gen Z votes are so crucial for the Liberals in the next federal election

The Liberal government is promoting measures in the federal budget aimed at young people as a matter of generational fairness, but the governing party also has a vested political interest in reaching out to Millennial and Gen Z voters.

The ridings with the largest numbers of younger voters were overwhelmingly carried by Liberal candidates in the last election and many are in key regions that could swing the outcome of the next vote, an analysis by CityNews shows.

Of the 20 ridings with the highest share of Millennials, 15 were won by Liberals in 2021 but many with only narrow margins of victory, including one of the only two Liberal seats in Alberta.  With more Gen Zers becoming old enough to vote in the next election for the first time, they could change the outcome in closely-contested electoral battlegrounds.

The government’s federal budget tabled last week made 21 references to Millennials or Gen Zs and offered measures to help renters and first-time home buyers get a toehold in a real estate market dominated by Baby Boomers and older voters. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet ministers have repeatedly cited the two demographic groups as they travel the country to promote the budget.

“For far too many Millennial families or Gen Zers, the dream of home ownership is getting further and further away, no matter how hard they work, no matter the side hustles they pull together,” Trudeau said Tuesday at an event in Saskatoon.

“With this budget we are bringing back fairness for young people.”

The riding of Spadina-Fort York, with the highest concentration of Millennials of any in the country, was narrowly won by Kevin Vuong, who was on the ballot as a Liberal candidate but sits an independent after he was told he couldn’t represent the party in Parliament because of a past sexual assault allegation that the Liberals say he failed to disclose.

With its cluster of condominiums in Liberty Village and around the Harbourfront, more than half of the population in Spadina-Fort York were between the ages of 25 and 40, according to 2021 census data. It is seats like those in the Greater Toronto Area that the Liberals must hold if they are to retain power after the next election. 

Other ridings with large numbers of Millennials were won by the Liberals with margins of victory of less than five percentage points, including Toronto’s Davenport riding held by MP Julie Dzerowicz, who beat the NDP candidate by only 76 votes, and Vancouver Granville, where Liberal Taleeb Noormohamed won by 433 votes.

About 29 per cent of the population in Edmonton Centre was between the ages of 25 and 39 in 2021. Liberal employment minister Randy Boissonnault took the seat with a slim 615-vote margin of victory over the Conservative candidate.

Similarly, the list of ridings with the highest number of members of the Generation Z cohort — between the ages and 15 and 19 years in the 2021 census —  also skewed strongly Liberal. Only three of the top 20 Gen Z ridings elected opposition MPs – all New Democrats.

Many more of those Gen Zs will be old enough to vote in the next election scheduled for October 2025.

(The boundaries of many of these ridings will change before the next to election to balance shifting populations.)

Ridings with the lowest proportion of Millennials and Gen Zs tend to be in Atlantic Canada and rural Quebec, regions with populations aging faster than in urban areas where Liberals do better with voters.

While younger voters have historically tended to skew left, public-opinion research suggests the trend may be shifting. Polls over the past year have shown Millennials and Gen Zs moving toward Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives. 

It’s an open question how many of those responding to online polls will show up to cast a ballot in a general elections. Elections Canada says the turnout among younger voters fell in the 2019 and 2021 elections faster than other demographics.

“There’s a general sense of malaise, almost what some might describe nihilism,” said pollster Frank Graves of EKOS Research.

“On things like overall life happiness, the degree to which you’re experiencing positive intergenerational mobility — doing better than your parents were at this stage in life — the numbers are dismal, the worst ever.”

Graves said his research shows sharp divisions in attitudes among Millennial men and women, but it doesn’t necessarily support the idea that younger voters are moving en masse to the Conservatives. 

Overall, he finds Millennials show pronounced distrust of corporations and politicians, and he believes the budget’s vow to tax wealthier Canadians more could appeal to them, even though its messaging may be lost in its discussion of the complexities of the capital gains inclusion rate.

“That’s sort of where the Liberals are going with the budget. You know, ‘We’re going do some big things, like build some houses for you, and we’re going to tax the rich.’ I know that that framing is resonant with young Canada.”