Did Wildrose miss chance to connect with young Albertans?

Overlooking youth wings could have ‘drastic’ consequences says Quebec activist

Story: Ryan Rumbolt | Calgary Journal

Photo: Drew Henn | Calgary Journal

Could Danielle Smith’s Wildrose Alliance have benefitted from taking a page from Mayor Nenshi’s efforts to attract the youth vote?

With the advent of social media, the youth vote is gaining higher profile and was cred- ited with substantially helping with Barack Obama’s 2008 U.S. election victory and with Naheed Nenshi’s 2010 victory in the Calgary mayor’s race.

Alberta’s 2012 provincial election was no different.

To try to recruit a new generation of voters, all of the big name parties used youth wings – except for the Wildrose Alliance.

YOUTH MATTERS

Youth wings help parties get in touch with young voters, usually those between the ages of 18 and 25. But that communication goes both ways. Youth wings also give a chance for young voters to have their voices heard in the political arena.

“If you don’t have a youth wing you are completely disconnected with the young people,” says Alexandre Thériault-Marois, former president of the youth wing for Quebec’s recently elected Parti Quebecois. “The consequences can be very drastic.”

While youth in general might not be as politically engaged as their parents, as future leaders, young voters have the most to gain by hitting the polls, Théri- ault-Marois says. He suggests that staying in touch with youth is key to gaining votes, so finding new ways to connect is important for youth wings.

“We gathered a lot of young people to have a good team on Twitter, Facebook and other social media,” Thériault-Marois says. “Young people don’t have a fixed line anymore. They have a cell phone. So we have to adapt and we have to be present on all the

places young people are.”

While Elections Alberta doesn’t keep track of voter turnout by demographic, overall voter turnout in the 2012 election was the highest in over a decade. According to Statistics Canada there are over 84,000 Albertans in the youth demographic.

So why wouldn’t the Wildrose have had a youth wing? Why decline the opportunity to reach out to young voters?

The Wildrose Alliance declined to comment on the issue, but Keith Brownsey – a political science profes- sor at Mount Royal University – was able to shed some light on the subject.

“They have limited resources,” Brownsey says. “Why spend those limited resources on a demographic that isn’t going to bother to come out to vote, and that with which your policy direction is somewhat at odds?”

YOUTH, SOCIAL MEDIA AND BEYOND

Youth and politics are two things that have rarely gone hand in hand. But with social media becoming such a regular part of daily life, political parties and their youth wings are starting to reach out to their youngest demographic.

Brownsey has done research and found that low youth voter turnout in Canada goes back as far as the ’30s. But despite low numbers, political campaigns are still trying to get the attention of new voters.

“It’s a tweet campaign in the United States now,” Brownsey says. “The Sirius channel devoted to the politics of the United States has a show on in the afternoon on Twitter politics – politics as defined by Twitter. I’m certainly intrigued by it, in bringing in younger people.

“There are all of these new social media that are be- ing engaged to bring that young demographic in.”

It takes more than social media saturation to con- nect with young voters, however. If elections were won and lost on Facebook, the Wildrose would be leading the pack with leader Danielle Smith’s 29,000 “likes” compared to Alison Redford’s 2,000.

A “Get out the vote” campaign registered over 10,000 new voters at the University of Alberta, Univer- sity of Lethbridge and University of Calgary this year. But of those three schools only one – University of Calgary – had a Wildrose student organization.

It is the youth wings that ensure youth issues are being addressed, says Michael Smith, senior vice presi- dent of external communications for the University of Calgary Campus Conservative Association.

They also make sure that their party has a presence where young people are – at universities and colleges.

Smith says that the Progressive Conservative youth wing provides the association with guidance, direction and inter-party connections.

“Votes are won every day by building good relation- ships with people and I think that the parties have been very smart in that they are building their rela- tionships with youth very early on,” Smith says. "That’s why there is a dedicated wing in the PC and the con- servative parties to target youth that are interested."

“They see them as a long term votes, they see them as volunteers and they see them as someone who might potentially run for them in the future.”

November 2012 | calgaryjournal.ca