Expect millennials to become the demographic darlings of the rest of the federal election campaign.Their support for Justin Trudeau in 2015 was what put the Liberals into the running and pushed them towards victory. They liked him for his green credentials and embraced his socially progressive values.Conversely, as a generation, they have little tolerance of discrimination of any kind.Whether they would come back to support him again in 2019 was already an open question, but the blackface photos have Liberals doubly worried about this key slice of the electorate.Young adults are in play. Let the wooing begin in earnest.The approach of both the Liberals and the Conservatives over the past few months of electioneering has been to equate millennials with housing affordability.There’s good reason for this. In April, Statistics Canada took a close look at the finances of 25-to-34-year-olds and found that they are somewhat richer than their parents and generation X at that age, but they are also highly in debt and stretched thin.The housing market is at the centre of that tension. Home ownership levels are just as high among millennials as for other previous generations of young Canadians, but these days, those home prices are surging. Millennials are taking on big, heavy mortgages. They’re generally making good money compared to previous generations at that age, but their debt levels mean that the ratio of debt to after-tax income is sky-high for today’s young adults. It’s 1.7 times higher now than it was for young generation Xers, and 2.7 times higher than it was for young baby boomers.And pollsters have found that their concerns about heavy debt and affordability influence their political choices. In response to questions from polling firm Leger about top issues that drive their decision to support a particular political party, the 18-34 cohort placed jobs and economic growth at the top of their list, tied with climate change. Income tax and ...
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