The youth haven’t all turned their backs on Trudeau just yet, pundits say

[Some delegates turned their backs on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier this week at the Young Workers’ Summit. The Canadian Press]

It won’t be the one to bring him down, but with political capital, everything has a price.

Pollsters and political analysts agree: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came off looking pretty good Tuesday after an altercation with hecklers at a youth labour forum.

They say the PM appeared to remain open-minded and engaging, and the event is unlikely to damage his brand. They also say it reinforces how youth represent many differing viewpoints, a point Trudeau himself has made.

“Protesting is certainly a healthy part of democracy, and it shows that youth aren’t all falling under this banner of being happy with Mr. Trudeau,” said Megan Beretta, a youth engagement activist in Ottawa.

Even so, some say the incident — where a group turned their backs on the prime minister and hurled angry demands like “keep your promises!” — shows how Trudeau’s lofty vows will inevitably come into conflict with each other as his government pushes into the second year of its majority mandate.

“Every day you go along, you are trading on some of your political capital, and starting to build the coalition that will defeat you,” said pollster and Innovative Research Group president Greg Lyle.

‘A little bit frustrating’

The interruptions, lasting 30 minutes according to one report, began as Trudeau began taking questions at the event organized by the Canadian Labour Congress.

Some in the room vented their frustration on specific topics, like the proposed Pacific free trade pact and oil pipelines in Canada.

Trudeau’s patience was clearly tested, but he remained visibly upbeat, thanking them for challenging him.

“I believe in dialogue, I believe in honest, open engagement,” he said to some applause. “We’re not going to agree on everything… but there’s a lot of things that we do agree on.”

He did admit that it was “a little bit frustrating” to show up at the event hoping to hear from delegates, “and seeing a room full of people who are standing in a way that shows they’re not listening to me.”

It was the second time Trudeau has faced protests in a week. On Oct. 21, former Green Party candidate Ute Schmid-Jones threw pumpkin seeds at Trudeau as he left city hall in Hamilton, Ont. Earlier this month, Trudeau was also greeted by protesters in Medicine Hat, Alta.

Those events made the news, but haven’t been seen as game-changers. Tuesday’s incident at the youth forum is likely to be another example of that, said analysts.

“I don’t think it will stick,” said David Coletto, pollster and CEO of Abacus Data. “If anything, it might reinforce the image that the prime minister is trying to project, which is of a leader who is willing to go into uncomfortable situations,” he said.

Lyle also said it didn’t particularly hurt Trudeau’s brand. He said the prime minister’s attempt to stay engaged on the subject, calling for more dialogue and refusing to end the event or act scared, ultimately demonstrated his skill at handling such situations.

“I thought the prime minister behaved appropriately,” said Andrew Potter, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada.

“Any reasonably politically engaged person should see that, regardless of the issues, the prime minister I thought behaved like a grown-up and a gentleman.”

[Prime Minister Trudeau also serves as the minister for youth. The Canadian Press]

Youth issues, and issues important to youth

Beretta said the protest exemplified the frustration some youth experience over their feelings of political disempowerment.

“Why are young people feeling disempowered in this circumstance? One of the things I think it could be, is their… understanding of which ways they can make a difference,” she said.

The prime minister, as the minister for youth, and with his newly-established youth council, is the man in charge of two of those avenues. Trudeau, to his credit, indicated that he respected the choice to protest, said Beretta.

“One of the good things it says about Mr. Trudeau is that he’s getting more people to engage on issues that are important to them, that are outside the realm of just youth issues, and outside of the realm of, ‘Smile with me, I’m the youth minister,’” she said.

But analysts also questioned where exactly the protests were coming from, and what they represented.

At the forum, complaints were raised about several different topics, including the problematic federal Phoenix pay system affecting tens of thousands of workers, and the promises Trudeau has made to Indigenous peoples.

“There’s issues that apply to people because they’re young, and then there are things that people are outraged about, and they just happen to be young. This seems to fall into the latter category,” said Potter.

The attendees of the forum were more likely to be involved in the world of political activism than the average Canadian youth, argued Lyle and Coletto.

“These were labour activists who probably hold views on trade and environmental issues that are probably different from the average Canadian, and hold those views much stronger,” said Coletto.

But Beretta said while it was a particular group of people, other youth-organized forums that Trudeau attends might have other political leanings.

“I would hope that being trained in activism would mean that you would participate in a more deliberative way,” she said.

Spending political capital

The heckling of a youth-friendly prime minister demonstrates how the Liberals built a winning coalition in the last election that “cut across all the ideological divides in Canada,” said Lyle. It’s inevitable that as the government begins moving on its agenda a year into its mandate, it will start to build up an enemies list.

“Their coalition includes people that fundamentally disagree on a whole variety of issues, and every time the government makes a decision, they’re going to alienate one part of their coalition,” he said.

The Liberals promised a youth-friendly agenda, noted Coletto, and thanks to a high youth voter turnout overwhelmingly for the Liberals, expectations are sky-high that the government will deliver.

Some recent moves haven’t exactly helped, he said, such as tightening mortgage rules and the comments Finance Minister Bill Morneau made about Canadians having to accept “job churn,” or precarious employment.

“I don’t think each one of these by themselves are going to hurt the prime minister’s personal popularity,” said Coletto.

“But over the course of their mandate, I think they’ll have to find a way to meet what are, I think, pretty high expectations of young people.”