William Watson: ‘One fogey, one vote’ is seniors’ hill to die on

Skip to Content News Archives Economy Energy Oil & Gas Renewables Electric Vehicles Mining Commodities Agriculture Real Estate Mortgages Mortgage Rates Finance Banking Insurance Fintech Cryptocurrency Work Wealth Smart Money Wealth Management Investor Personal Finance Family Finance Retirement Taxes High Net Worth FP Comment Executive Women Puzzmo Newsletters Financial Times Business Essentials More Innovation Information Technology FP500 Podcasts Small Business Lives Told Tails Told Shopping Financial Post Store Obituaries Place a Notice Advertising Advertising With Us Advertising Solutions Postmedia Ad Manager Sponsorship Requests Classifieds Place a Classifieds ad Working Profile Settings My Subscriptions Saved Articles My Offers Newsletters Customer Service FAQ News Economy Energy Mining Real Estate Finance Work Wealth Investor FP Comment Executive Women Puzzmo Newsletters Financial Times Business Essentials This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.HomeFP CommentWilliam Watson: 'One fogey, one vote' is seniors’ hill to die onElder power may be a political problem but giving seniors only a fraction of the vote younger Canadians get is no way to try to solve itLast updated 37 minutes ago You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.A voter walks away from an advanced polling station located at Campbell Collegiate before the Canadian Federal Election on Monday, April 21, 2025 in Regina. Photo by KAYLE NEIS/Regina Leader-PostI wrote last week about how, as they get older, Conservative party voters supposedly are becoming more fond of government, especially its pensions and health care. This has persuaded some strategists that the party needs to reconsider its antipathy to big government — though recent Conservative governments haven’t actually been very anti-government. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLYSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman, and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESCreate an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountThe argument for succumbing to this supposed switch to socialist sentiment is purely expedient: if Conservatives don’t give older Canadians what they want, older Canadians won’t vote Conservative and the Tories will never see power. There is another way around the growing socialism of older folk, however: reduce their political power. Seniors vote more than young people do and, in the U.S., at least, give more money to political parties. Because money and votes talk, seniors get the policies they want — and would continue to even if there were term or age limits for politicians, so there wouldn’t be six senators in their eighties, one in his nineties, and an 80-year-old president (though the president does have the verbal energy of someone half his age, not to mention emotional stability way younger than that). Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againAccording to Yale law professor Samuel Moyn’s new book — “Gerontocracy in America: How the Old are Hoarding Power and Wealth — and What to Do About It” — elder power is a big problem in the U.S. As Moyn told an interviewer, “I don’t think we can choose between taking oligarchy seriously and taking age seriously because the oligarchy is old … Oligarchy and patriarchy go together and always have. Gerontocracy is a new phenomenon, but it explains the kind of oligarchy we have, which is older.” Oligarchy. Patriarchy. You get a taste of where he’s coming from. “First, we (ahem) all the lawyers,” Shakespeare had a character say. Well, he didn’t actually say “ahem.” It was a more direct and brutal word that modern editorial standards say we can’t use in relation to a class of living persons. But if Shakespeare were alive today, he’d probably amend his advice to “First, we (ahem) all the law profs.” Law professors seem to be the source of many of today’s crazier policies. One of Moyn’s proposals — which he doesn’t necessarily endorse but says he merely raises in toting up all the things you might do — is to reduce seniors’ voting power directly by “correlating our votes with our stake in the election … which is greater when you have a longer time to live under the policies being chosen.” For instance, as he argues, older folks care less about climate change than young people because they won’t actually live to experience its consequences. That’s a statement about averages, of course. Yes, David Suzuki is 90 and he still seems to care a lot about climate change — though not so much about the living standards his descendants will enjoy, if “enjoy” is the right word for life in the austere Suzukian future. This advertisement has not loaded yet.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.On the other hand, many older folk have children and, as many of my friends noted when they became parents, you don’t really start caring about the future until you are a parent. So maybe we should only dilute the votes of childless old folks. In any case, it would be interesting to see how we decided what fraction of a vote older people got on which issues. I guess we’d have a panel like the one in Iran that decides who’s allowed to run for president.Our political structure is different from the American, of course. No coincidence, that: Preserving the difference is a main reason Canada is here — as we used to teach Canadian children before we started marinating them in the great tragedy that our being here is. In 2025, our MPs’ average age was 52.3, compared to 57.7 in the U.S. House and 63.9 in the U.S. Senate. (In the U.K. House of Commons the average age was 49.2, while 190 members of the Lords were over 80 — though Labour is cleaning out the Lords.) But despite our MPs’ relative youthfulness, many Canadian policies tilt toward older folk. Perfectly sensibly, in 2012 the Harper government, recognizing the long-term increase in Canadians’ health and life expectancy, announced it would be raising the eligibility age for Old Age Security from 65 to 67 — gradually, over 17 years. But that decision was reversed by the Trudeau government, even though it was widely believed to have been elected because of young voters’ enthusiasm for Justin Trudeau. In 2021, the Trudeau government introduced a surprise 10 per cent permanent increase in OAS for people 75 and older. And because it’s strongly supported by the Bloc Québécois, whose core support is superannuated separatists, it’s never likely to be revoked. Even worse, though poverty rates among seniors are low, some future government will likely extend it down to 65-year-olds.See: We older folk are as capable as any group in society of recognizing when our self-interest runs against the public good. In any case, we are a problem with a self-executing solution: we’ll be gone soon enough. Notice for the Postmedia NetworkThis website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.