On April 22 I was at the dentist and my dentist and hygienist ended up discussing the upcoming federal election.
The dentist, who is older and earns significantly more than the hygienist, said he was supporting Mark Carney’s Liberals because they were the best option to defend Canada against Trump. The hygienist, who was younger and recently had a child, said she had voted Conservative because the Liberals were in power for the past decade during which the cost of living had significantly risen. She wanted a change from the status quo and saw Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives as the best option.
Their discussion felt like a microcosm of an election in which older and wealthier voters rallied behind the Liberals, while young people skewed Conservative—a change from the historical norm in which younger voters have favoured the NDP. The fact that my hygienist did not see Jagmeet Singh’s NDP as an option is a testament to how the NDP identified themselves with the despised status quo by propping up Trudeau’s Liberal government—a gift to Poilievre, who could then pose as the only anti-status quo option.
No party that defends capitalism, however, offers any solution other than making workers pay for the crisis. At my next cleaning appointment in September, I’ll be bringing copies of Communist Revolution and asking my hygienist if she wants to get organized and fight for the only real alternative to the capitalist status quo: communism.
