After a day of reflection (while taking down dozens of election signs) I have some thoughts to share about election we just had in Toronto. I’d like to start with linking to Morgan Baskin’s recent blog post “So What’s Next?” which I read last night after getting home from the election night party that my candidate of choice, Raymond Desilets had thrown for his supporters and volunteers. I was exhausted, and much of what I have read and done in the past week (especially after this past weekend of non-stop canvassing) has barely registered in my memory, yet I cannot stop thinking about Baskin’s post.

For those who don’t know, in a nutshell Baskin ran for mayor and gained some recognition (first in the mainstream media seemingly as a novelty, then in the view of a lot of people as a totally impressive and fantastic candidate). Morgan Baskin is awesome. I wish I had the courage when I was 18 (or 19) to do what she has done. I barely had the courage to do what I did this election. I have a LOT of feelings about this election, and to be quite honest I’m struggling to write this post so it’s both coherent and concise, so I’m going to try to focus in on my thoughts about it on the main theme I kept thinking of during. That is, my age.

I’m 23. In relation to Baskin my age seems (or just feels) to be so much older. I’ve been through university, where I grew up tremendously (I attribute this however more to the specific moment in time I went to a specific university however, not by virtue of going to university in general) and thinking about what is different for me now than when I was 18 is staggering. However, I’m just four years older than Baskin, which I know is nothing. I relate to her quite a bit, I was always the baby of the group wherever I went when I was her age, albeit I was working at Greenpeace not running for mayor. While I feel that my 18 self and 23 self are totally different, I know that four years isn’t really that big of a deal, which is evidenced by my friendships with workers and individuals in some cases decades older than me. Yet no matter how different I feel about myself in this four year period, I know that one thing hasn’t changed.

I’m still a young person. When I met with Ray Desilets I told him I would run and organize his canvass operations (I have a LOT of canvassing experience) and simply due to the fact I am unemployed I poured my free time into his campaign, and ended up taking on the title of “Campaign Manager”. This transition felt totally natural for Ray and I, it was just a title to reflect what I was doing. What that title also means is a new line for my CV now too, which is a constant obsession for me to gain credibility as an employable person. This past year I worked as a canvasser/pollcat for two other political campaigns (Jonah Schein’s re-election campaign in Davenport and Joe Cressy’s by-election campaign in Trinity-Spadina). To be perfectly blunt, I did it because I was unemployed and despite not ever wanting to knock on doors again (lots of experience as a fundraiser), I realized that if I both wanted work and wanted to create positive change, this was my immediate destiny. As I return now to hopefully short time of being both unemployed and mostly unoccupied I relate heavily to Baskin when she felt the need to point out she needs to get a job, something too many older folk keep forgetting our generation is finding to be extremely hard.

It was during my time at the Joe Cressy campaign I became incredibly disappointed that no good candidates have emerged in my ward, Ward 5, to run for council. We had no incumbent and with the provincial NDP doubling their vote share in the recent election I thought someone like me (a progressive) could win. On my last evening volunteering for the Cressy campaign multiple NDP workers who I look up to told me I need to continue doing political work, I was ecstatic. However despite this, I ultimately chickened out and hoped that a “real candidate” (read: someone who was a “real” adult) would emerge. This turned out to be Ray Desilets, and quite frankly his platform is far better than anything I would have come up with, I was excited that there was a serious local campaign I could focus my time and energy on. I have the utmost respect for Ray and I know he does for me as well, it was a fantastic working relationship.

During my time working for Ray I was assumed to be his son a few dozen times (despite the fact I would often mention “Ray has a son a year or two younger than me” when talking about him) or it was assumed I was a family friend. I was, and still am OK with these assumptions. It was a local campaign, and Ray’s son was out canvassing with us after all. What I’m not OK with is how sheepishly I would introduce myself as Ray’s campaign manager in turn. I was never afraid to send emails, using the veil of internet anonymity, with my title attached however. When I would tell people my title, the most common response was to gush about my age and to ask me a wave of personal questions (what I went to school for, what I want to do with my life, do I live with my parents still, etc). I was frustrated with and still am is that my age instantly became a novelty. The number of baby boomers who felt the need to tell me they’re so happy to “finally see a young person getting involved” was infuriating, especially when this was coming from someone much older than me who wasn’t even sure if we voted for city councillors before I knocked on their door. Yet, because of how I perceive myself as a young person I would be shy and anxious about this instead of feeling pride.

Last night however, after feeling pretty bummed not just at the results of the mayoral election and the council election in Ward 5, but at the results of all the other races I had invested so much hope into (namely Idil Burale in Ward 1, Andray Domise in Ward 2, Russ Ford in Ward 6 and Alejandra Bravo in Ward 17) I read Morgan Baskin’s blog post. It was at this point for the first time I think I truly felt pride all election, not just in myself, but for Baskin and all the other young people I know who worked their asses off in some way or another over these past ten months. It’s awesome, and we need to keep it up.