The most recent World Happiness Report demonstrated a shocking decline in “life satisfaction” for those under 30 in Canada. This decline “places Canada just above Venezuela, Lebanon and Afghanistan” according to the report—the countries with the greatest declines.
But is this really surprising?
Capitalism has stolen the future of an entire generation. Long gone is the middle-class life that many baby boomers in Canada grew up with. Home ownership is out of reach for most people and rent takes up an ever-increasing portion of expenses. What has been dubbed a “youth-cession” offers little opportunity for young people, with unemployment at 14 per cent.
To add insult to injury, governments at all levels have begun to take an axe to education funding, making getting a postsecondary education more difficult, especially for poor working-class students.
The weight of this situation weighs on the minds of millions of young people, who feel hopeless.
Unsurprisingly, 26 per cent of youth aged 16 to 21 report fair or poor mental health in 2023, up from 12 per cent in 2019.
But this hopelessness and depression is only one side of the revolutionary coin. The driving force of any revolution is always the youth. This is precisely what we saw in the Arab revolutions in 2011 and the Gen Z revolutions last year. When young people see no way forward within the system, they will move on the road to fight for a new system—one that doesn’t sacrifice future generations to maintain their profit margins.
