Written by Addison Fach

With nothing to lose and everything to gain, Gen-Z is aggressively asserting their political power using the tools at their disposal and leaving their mark on history. Their future prospects look increasingly grim as they stand to inherit a world on fire, a political landscape on the brink, and an economy that is leaving all but the ultra-rich behind. You can hardly blame them for the urge to “tear it all down and go full YOLO nihilist”. Young people are losing faith in governing institutions that continue to let them down and erode any path to prosperity. Alarming global trends show young people embracing right-wing anti-government politics, justifying political violence, and in some cases even burning entire governments to the ground.

Gen Z is also making their political presence known here in Canada as we grapple with many of the same forces testing democracies around the globe. We have a unique opportunity to prove to young voters that Canadian democracy can adapt, deliver lasting results, and settle conflicts through peaceful means despite our vast cultural and regional diversity. To do that, we need to transform our out-of-touch electoral system into a tool that empowers young Canadians to shape their collective future. 

Young people are rightfully angry and anxious about the appalling state of the world as they come of age. Life seems more unfair than it has been in a very long time. A few rich and powerful individuals (mostly old white men) at the top are calling the shots while the rest of us are just trying to get by paycheque to paycheque. Some have argued that young people today are materially better off than any other generation in history. That might be objectively true on the surface, but it’s hard to compare your quality of life with some medieval peasant from the distant past, especially when a lawless billionaire class is flaunting their ridiculously wealth on social media while their unsustainable lifestyle renders the rest of the planet uninhabitable in real time. The abysmal failure of “trickle down” economic policy in the 1980s has allowed the wealth gap to spiral out of control to a level unseen in all of human history. It’s not just a matter of perceived inequality that has the youth riled up; young people really are struggling in today’s economy in objective terms.

Far from being lazy or unproductive, Gen-Z is working more for less compared to past generations. Overall, Gen-Z has a higher employment rate and higher relative wages thanks to better education, but they also face much higher prices than their parents did at their age, essentially cancelling out all the economic gains they’ve worked so hard to achieve. For those that do manage to overcome the higher cost of living and save enough money to purchase a home, they are burdened with much higher mortgage debt than previous generations. 

Despite working more, young adults have to wait longer to reach major milestones like getting a degree, owning a home, or having children. The goal posts keep narrowing and moving further away. Working overtime hours and multiple jobs used to be a discretionary way to earn extra disposable income. Now, it seems like working to the point of burnout is a requirement just to keep up with inflation, nevermind saving for retirement or major life expenses. That’s not an incentive for a more productive workforce, that’s a recipe for resentment. In some parts of the world, that resentment over lack of economic opportunity is boiling over into open revolt.

On September 8, thousands of Nepali youth sparked a “leaderless grassroots movement” on social media that brought the government of Nepal to its knees in a matter of days. What started as a peaceful demonstration against a social media ban quickly gained momentum, fuelled by widespread public anger over blatant corruption, profound wealth inequality, and a lack of employment opportunities for Nepal's youth. Even after the government lifted the social media ban, anti-corruption protests against the political elite continued. Police opened fire on the protesters, killing 19 and injuring dozens more. This escalation unleashed the crowd's full fury. Government buildings were set ablaze, officials were evacuated as their homes were destroyed, and the Prime Minister of Nepal was ultimately forced to resign.

What is striking about the so-called “Gen-Z Revolution” is not only how quickly it unfolded, but how the young protesters used decentralized online forums to effectively bring down a government and then install a new one of their choosing. After the government collapsed, students harnessed the online gaming communication platform, Discord, as an impromptu tool for deliberating amongst themselves who should fill the power vacuum. The youth chose Sushila Karki to lead an interim government via an online vote which was then legitimized after talks with the military to restore order. Formal elections are scheduled to be held in March of 2026. The youth-lead revolution succeeded, but they paid for it dearly with 74 deaths and over 2000 injured. Despite the costs, they agreed that the change in government was necessary.

Nepal’s Gen-Z Revolution is part of a regional trend of South Asian regimes being overthrown by violent protests. All of which were driven largely by a “younger generation fed up with cronyism, corruption and a lack of economic opportunities”. More broadly, it is part of a global trend toward violent conflict. Analysis by Vision of Humanity’s Global Peace Index shows that global peacefulness has been deteriorating for the last decade and conditions for violent conflict are higher now than at any point since the second World War. That comes as no surprise after wars in Ukraine and Gaza have dominated headlines in recent years, but internal conflicts are also brewing within countries as political strife causes citizens to turn on each other.

Closer to home, political violence is being normalized and even embraced by some of our American neighbours south of the border. The assassination of the young right-wing political commentator Charlie Kirk - who notably justified the prevalence of American gun violence himself - is just one example of a string of targeted violent attacks motivated by political extremism. Democratic Minnesota legislator Melissa Hortmann and her husband were both shot and killed in their home this past June, although the Kirk shooting received significantly more media attention. What makes these incidents more unnerving is the growing trend toward acceptance of violence, particularly among younger generations. Immediately after Kirk’s assassination, a sample poll of Americans were asked whether violent attacks can be justified. A full 20 percent of respondents aged 18 to 29 (Generation Z) said that sometimes violence can be justified - more than any other generation. A trend toward social acceptance of violence is an ominous problem in the “only nation in the world where civilian guns outnumber people”. 

Thankfully, Canada has avoided the worst of the rising tide of conflict around the world. Despite a range of regional, cultural, and linguistic divides, Canada’s middle-way politics has been remarkably resilient to the “hard-right surge” that has gripped many other democracies. That being said, Canada’s tendency towards centrist politics should not be taken for granted as a permanent feature of our democracy. After all, it was the baby-boomers, not Gen-Z, who flocked to Mark Carney’s Liberal Party to block a Trump-like conservative movement and keep Poilievre out of power. Younger Canadians, especially young men, were by far the most receptive to Poilieve’s message: that an out-of-touch and corrupt Liberal government was to blame for nearly all of their problems. Reaching out to disaffected young voters to bring them into the democratic process is indeed good for boosting civic engagement, but there is a fine line between affirming their anger and inflaming it for political gain. Stoking public anger and directing it at your political opponent is an easy way to score short-term political points, but it has long-term consequences for the strength of our democracy and the overall peacefulness of our society. 

Two years ago, The Hill Times reported a “growing generational divide” in which young Canadians had less trust in government and more economic anxiety than that of older generations. That is not to say that a Nepal-style revolution is likely to happen in Canada any time soon, but it does suggest that younger Canadians are experiencing similar feelings of disenfranchisement as youth in other countries. The political right may have successfully tapped into young people’s grievances in the latest election cycle. However, given the growing anti-establishment sentiments of today’s youth, all political parties and politicians ought to be wary of fanning the flames of discontent and distrust if they hope to govern for more than a single election cycle. Assuming current trends continue, one could easily imagine a scenario in which Conservatives ride a wave of young people’s resentment back into power, only to find themselves the target of that very same anti-government anger without an incumbent Liberal government to blame. If all our electoral system is able to accomplish is repeatedly tossing out one government for another, people will inevitably lose faith in our democracy as a means of long-term stability and prosperity. 

So how do we break this cycle and solve the underlying trend of declining trust in government? First, parties and candidates should take some responsibility for the toxic political environment they themselves have created by offering comprehensive solutions-based policies rather than fearmongering about their opponents. Second, and arguably more importantly, we need to change the way we elect our governments to disincentivise divisive politics in the first place.

In 2022, Fair Vote Canada suggested that Canadian democracy is not only in decline, but becoming more like that of the United States. They also argue that the infamous ‘Freedom Convoy’ of the same year is indicative of a broader trend toward public distrust in Canada’s democratic institutions as well as “increased levels of support for non-democratic alternatives”. This is concerning, but not surprising when you consider that our outdated first-past-the-post electoral system regularly disenfranchises a majority of voters. In the current system, elections and individual constituencies are often won with less than 50% of the vote, while the majority of the vote is often split among several other parties and candidates. Based on this formula, a party can win 100% of the power despite receiving less than half of popular support, while the majority who did not vote for the winning party are left without any direct representation in government. That math doesn’t add up, and it leaves many Canadians understandably feeling left behind. 

Ten years ago Justin Trudeau won a majority government in 2015, promising it would be the last federal election under the first-past-the-post system. After breaking that promise and abandoning any path to electoral reform, he won only minority governments in the 2019 and 2021 elections. By the 2025 election, young people had largely abandoned the Liberals and instead hitched their hopes for change on the Conservative bandwagon, only to be disappointed yet again by a stunning Liberal upset victory after swapping out the deeply unpopular Trudeau for Mark Carney at the eleventh hour. The Liberals may have held on to power, but they are losing the support of young Canadian voters.

How can we ask young people to participate in a system that keeps disappointing them? Why would a generation so desperate for change continue upholding our democracy when their vote is only represented in government when they conform with the rest of the electorate and vote for the winner? 

Canada is a diverse and multicultural country spread across vastly different regions with differing interests. A polarizing choice between two dominant parties is not nearly enough to encompass Canada’s political diversity. First-past-the-post, winner-take-all politics inevitably leaves large swatches of the population underrepresented and without political power. If we continue towards an exclusively two-party system, young people’s faith in our democracy will continue to slide, and they will continue looking for leavers of change outside of our democratic system. That makes us vulnerable to exactly the kind of “political instability and uncertainty” that former Prime Minister Trudeau thought he was avoiding by reversing his promise of electoral reform. In reality, he likely just wanted to hold on to his majority government to avoid sharing power with other parties. Governments elected with proportional representation never produce false majorities that exclude more than half the electorate. Instead, they rely on coalitions between two or more parties, forcing collaborative decision-making that reflects what more of the country actually wants.

Implementing a Made-in-Canada proportional representation system similar to what many other western democracies use might not be as exciting or dramatic as protesting on the streets or burning down government buildings. But it might persuade the young people who have given up on democracy that voting and participating in peaceful civic engagement can lead to meaningful and lasting changes that endure well beyond 4-year election cycles.

Gen-Z is angry and resourceful. They’re not going to sit idly by while their future goes up in smoke. Governments are failing to fix the problems young people are struggling with, but Gen-Z has shown that they are willing to take matters into their own hands if necessary. It’s up to all of us, governments and voters alike, to repair our broken electoral system so that it can be used as a tool for people to channel their discontent into constructive change rather than destructive violence.

It is not enough to simply repeat the tired old phrase, 'political violence has no place in our democracy'. We need to proactively replace it with something better, something more impactful. We need to make voting more effective than violence. If we don’t change the system to empower more young people, they just might burn it all down.