{"id":70564,"date":"2023-05-29T12:07:14","date_gmt":"2023-05-29T18:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/?p=70564"},"modified":"2023-05-29T12:07:14","modified_gmt":"2023-05-29T18:07:14","slug":"drug-use-taxes-wokeness-young-ucp-voters-cite-election-priorities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/2023\/05\/29\/drug-use-taxes-wokeness-young-ucp-voters-cite-election-priorities\/","title":{"rendered":"Drug use, taxes, wokeness \u2014 young UCP voters cite election priorities"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Danielle Smith addresses a crowd of supporters during a rally on May 25th, 2023 (Clayton Keim \/ The Press)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I<\/span>nside of a tent perched on the outskirts of the Grey Eagle Casino, Danielle Smith gave a speech to an energetic crowd of supporters promising \u201creduced taxes,\u201d \u201cgang suppression units that go after guns and fentanyl,\u201d and a \u201c25 per cent seniors discount on personal registry services.\u201d<\/p>\n

S<\/span>mith ended the event with a call for voters to \u201cchoose between the NDP\u2019s campaign of negativity and fear, or the UCP\u2019s campaign of positivity and hope for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Held four days before the election, the event served as a rallying cry to the UCP\u2019s core demographic of Albertans aged 40 and over.<\/p>\n

Although older voters made up the majority of the crowd, there were a number of younger people present.<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic transport [and] the drug crisis, that’s a big thing for me,\u201d said 16-year-old Ian Pollett. \u201cI\u2019ve been taking public transport to school for a while, and seeing all the homeless people doing heroin, crystal meth, and all that stuff just concerns me and makes me scared.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like Danielle Smith is going to do an amazing job counteracting the drug crisis and getting people off the street and getting them the help they need, instead of what Rachel Notley is planning on doing, giving them free drugs and naloxone kits and all that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to new data published by the Angus Reid Institute<\/a>, younger voters will play a critical role in the Alberta election. While younger voters have historically supported the NDP, they are also the least likely to turn out to vote.<\/p>\n

In the 2019 election<\/a>, voters between the ages of 18 to 24 had a 53.9 per cent turnout. Voters between the ages 65 and 74 had the highest turnout at 79.1 per cent.<\/p>\n

“Conservatism is something that all the cool young kids are doing. I\u2019m a member of the queer community, I don\u2019t care. It\u2019s hip to be square, and we just love being conservative,\u201d said Rio Aiello, another young voter in attendance. \u201cI just think we\u2019re moving away from George Bush-style politics and more to Donald Trump style. It\u2019s not about being a businessman; it’s about being a rock star, and the rock stars today are not the left, it\u2019s the right.<\/p>\n

Angelica Toy, aged 21, said that, \u201cI\u2019m going through the university system right now, and I\u2019ve noticed a huge change in how they\u2019re pushing the woke agenda and stuff. I\u2019ve noticed a huge destruction that\u2019s come upon our country. As a Christian, I find a lot of policies are now infringing on Christian values and the traditions that we\u2019ve all come to appreciate in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a place of God and country, and they\u2019re trying to make us into a place of immorality and maddening God.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inside of a tent perched on the outskirts of the Grey Eagle Casino, Danielle Smith gave a speech to an energetic crowd of supporters. Although older voters made up the majority of the crowd, there were a number of younger people present. [ READ MORE ]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":793,"featured_media":70566,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_ef_editorial_meta_text_assignment-slug":"S1 UCP Rally CK","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13,1591],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-70564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-city","8":"category-news","9":"category-provincial-national-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/793"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70564"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70593,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70564\/revisions\/70593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saitjournalism.ca\/thepress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}