'The kids are all right'
On speaking at UBC, growing the grassroots, and meeting young conservatives where they are.
The original version of this column was first published in Without Diminishment.
We’re all but one month removed from the launch of our new publication, Without Diminishment, and last week we had the pleasure of joining the UBC Conservatives for a panel before a packed lecture hall of students and guests eager to feel seen and heard on the issues that matter most to them.
‘An Evening Without Diminishment’ is how we were billed, and on the motivational and non-doomer front, I believe that we delivered. We were blessed to be flanked by the Hon. Gordon Campbell, who opened with august remarks on young conservatives taking back control of their future, lessons from his premiership, and providing a gentle hand in reminding those in attendance that you can fight your culture wars but don’t wholly lose sight of the economy. A firm rebuke of Canada’s failing status quo was on offer, yet optimism was still in ample supply.
Friend ‘Robin Skies’ joined Caroline Elliott, Geoff Russ, and myself on stage as an additional special guest, with words of wisdom on orienting oneself towards the social movements that matter most to young Canadians, and with remarks on the importance of becoming your own broadcaster. Skies, government name Adam Beattie, has quickly transformed from one of Canada’s top behind-the- scenes politicos into one of Canada’s most-popular TikTok influencers, routinely crossing millions in views and engagements with straight-to-camera, no-nonsense lessons to a predominantly younger audience no longer willing to settle for managed decline.
After a wide-ranging discussion on the early successes of the publication, the who we are and why we do it, and policy talk on the concerns surrounding a reconciliation model run amok, an overly permissible government drug culture gone predictably awry, and the need and the want from young people to build and defend monuments of meaning, the Q and A portion and discussions with the crowd afterwards very much reinforced the dynamics we’ve sought to engage with: an audience that hasn’t felt wholly served by its mainstream, or its campaigners.
There were thoughtful questions as to whether woke ‘gotcha’ conservative reporting and soundbites distract from the key issues such as affordability or immigration, concerns about drugs and crime, an esteemed UBC law professor expanded upon his concerns that the profession is being ceded to a group increasingly radical and out of touch with the principles of the profession, with co-founder and Editor-at-Large Geoff Russ encouraging the audience to march their way into institutions, and counter the left’s very own long march through our institutions, to the detriment of them all.
For myself, I was afforded the opportunity to expand on why I do what I do, why I first started writing here at Acceptable Views, why my work at Juno News, why my continued role at the NCC or in contribution with Project Ontario, and why I aided in founding this new publication to begin with: we can lie to ourselves and cast aside concerns of this country being more of a gerontocracy than a generationally cohesive democracy, and abandon our teens, twenties, and even thirtysomethings to further alienation and radicalizing forces that seek to prey upon that animus — yes, the Nick Fuenteses of the world — or we can work like hell to offer them a better path, validate those concerns, and ensure they stay in a tent where light is capable of getting in, and where the radioactive fallout from fed-posting won’t cling to their clothes.
They wanted to laugh and hear references to the memes in their online circles — about the institutional left and the right’s cope that “but the GDP goes up” when every facet of the human experience and our societies have gotten worse. They chuckled at familiar lingo like “based” and rooted for Caroline’s increasingly outsized influence on British Columbian politics — as a kind of “based,” whipsmart, cool professor of a hiking mom, and a sorely-needed youthful face who stands in contrast to a tired and stubborn party apparatchik that’s taking on water at the worst possible time for the province.
Not once did they mention the U.S. president, or the status of elbows up, down, akimbo…