CalgarianExOntarian
Active Member
It's not just high school drop outs that are having a hard time. I know some very well educated people who are stuck in low paying, crappy jobs. The middle class is slowly going down the tubes and younger people coming out of school, are pretty much screwed. It's not surprising that people are becoming angry and a backlash is forming. It will only grow worse in time and politicians like Ford will exploit the hell out of the situation. The Occupy protests may have gone away but the problems that caused it, have not and neither has the sentiment.
This.
Lack of opportunity for 20-somethings (and 30-, 40- and 50-ish people who suddenly find that their once-viable line of work is evaporating faster than they can draw breath) is a huge social issue, and is therefore a big factor in today's politics, at all levels.
(Of course there are still great opportunities for the brightest, most creative, and most energetic newgrads, in both positive and negative ways, e.g., positive progress in health care and environmental engineering, negative progress in lawyering and shoddy engineering to promote reckless northwest coast bitumen tanker traffic ASAP.)
The ability of municipal politicians to counter this trend is obviously limited. But to ignore it, to do nothing but let it get worse in your city, and then exploit it to get reelected is arguably as bad as the murder that Rob Ford allegedly could get away with. I don't think it's hyperbole to say that a mayoral candidate who can crush the Fords partly by getting a few 100,000 voters to understand what the stakes are would be a national hero.
(About Harper, AB govt, etc., ... don't get me started ...)
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