Maclean’s most recent cover announced, “The Rise of Conservative Youth.” CBC reported recently about how young men are radicalizing. The Walrus published, “The Kids are Leaning Right.”
These are fascinating storylines that build on how American men under 30 swung decisively for U.S. President Donald Trump and similar patterns that have emerged across democracies worldwide.
But young Canadian men aren’t following the trend. Headlines continue to warn about youth radicalization, but the real story is how Canada seems to be bucking these global trends.
Unlike the United States and much of the world, Canada’s young men, remarkably, have avoided the global conservative drift, fueled in part by the online “manosphere” culture and “anti-woke” movement.
According to the most recent Angus Reid polls, young Canadian men mostly lean left and align with young women. Only one-third of Canadian men aged 18 to 34 plan to vote Conservative this federal election — the lowest of any age group among men.
How do we make sense of our media’s insistence that the manosphere is shaping young Canadian men, when the data show our young men going against this tide?
One factor may be that angry young men are a genuine and scary phenomenon in the Western world. One-quarter of young men in 20 countries have shifted to conservative views over the last two decades, according to The Economist. In Germany, the far-right AfD party has found a powerful audience among disaffected young men. In South Korea, the 2022 election of overtly anti-feminist president Yoon Suk Yeol was propelled by a surge in support from young male voters.
Young men worldwide celebrate Andrew and Christian Tate, manosphere influencers facing charges of human trafficking and rape in Romania. The Nelk Boys, a Canadian-American social media group known for extremist commentary, have a significant online following in Canada. About three million Canadians regularly listen to Joe Rogan’s anti-establishment podcast.
Canadian data may also be tricky for media to navigate given its many ebbs and flows over the past four years. It’s true, many young Canadian men did swing to the right between the 2021 election and then prime minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation in January. Thirty per cent of young men supported the Conservatives the week of the 2021 election, a number that climbed to 43 per cent in the week before Trudeau resigned.
Less than three weeks later, in the days after Trump’s inauguration, that number dropped to 36 per cent of young men saying they planned to support the Conservatives. Since then, that number has fallen further, as men have shifted even more to the left.
One hypothesis is Canada’s youth are dismayed by the policies they are witnessing south of the border. But their moderation may be rooted in traditional Canadian values too.
Men aged 18 to 34 are more likely than older men to agree with the values of human rights (87 per cent), gender equality (80 per cent) and ethnocultural diversity (70 per cent), according to Statistics Canada. A significant majority of Canadian young men are satisfied with the way democracy works, a number that is two points higher than it was in 2010 (Environics Institute). They are the least concerned about their financial situation when compared to older men and women of all ages (Angus Reid poll April 13).
This data reveal a counterintuitive truth: while researchers worldwide scramble to understand youth radicalization, Canada should be studying what fosters moderation among our young men. The question isn’t why some Canadian men fall prey to extremist ideology — it’s why so many do not.
Perhaps our media’s obsession with the manosphere’s influence says more about our fears than about Canadian reality. Young Canadian men largely reject extremism, despite being exposed to the same online content as their international counterparts. What specific aspects of Canadian life — our educational institutions, social safety nets, health-care system — foster this outlook? How do our schools, families and public discourse help young men develop political identities not defined by resentment?
Understanding these protective factors isn’t just an academic question. Canada’s counter-cultural trends may hold lessons that democracies worldwide need.
Maybe the difference is Canada has a decent social safety net, with free universal medicare, whereas our closest neighbour the U.S., doesn’t.