fun fact: canada has yet to elect a baby boomer prime minister. and, it seems unlikely to happen, now.
rather, we had a string of "silent generation" prime ministers from 1967-2006, and gen x took over directly from there.
the conservatives transitioned to a boomer prime minister in 1993, but she got destroyed in the subsequent election. she was only prime minister for a few months and left no meaningful legacy. she's basically forgotten to history, in every context except being our only female prime minister.
the right then completely collapsed, and when it came back it consciously decided to pick a younger leader. stephen harper is arguably a very late boomer, in that cusp area, but he was really totally gen x in just about every way.
the liberals had a few boomer leaders, but they spent the whole time in opposition. trudeau the younger was born in 1971.
the conservatives will have a leadership convention in 2017. there are no prominent boomer candidates at this point.
the leader of the third party - thomas mulcair - is a more recognizable boomer. but, his chances of winning the next election are rather low. and, if he gets replaced, it's almost certain to be by an xer.
it's just another example of how canada is different. the narrative in the english speaking world for decades has been how the boomers control everything, and gen x is going to get skipped over.
but, in canada, the oldest generation never ceded power to the boomers and instead skipped them in favour of the xers.
it's tempting to draw conclusions about how canada was able to avoid the boomer generation obsession with tax cuts at the expense of social services.
canada: gen x nation. i admit i like the idea. that's a different set of values. what does it mean? well, we already have superior music, and arguably culture in general. legal pot is on the way. a bit of an existentialist slant in the law? shit, how about a guaranteed annual income.
this is not a crazy perception of things.
... because it really does seem relevant to point out how important the silent generation was to our politics here, and how comparably unimportant the boomers were.
maybe that's the answer. maybe the difference between canada and the united states is that we're staggered a generation. the americans jumped from the gis to the boomers, skipping the silent generation, and seem poised to skip over gen x and jump to the millenials. look at the democratic primaries. they're both past retirement age. suppose you get eight years out of clinton, even. you could start getting some young millenials running.
it looks like canada jumped from the silent generation to gen x and may very well skip the millenials.
i know that these kinds of analysis are overly broad. vague. statistical, if anything; mostly, just meaningless. but, maybe there's some truth underlying it.
hey, hey (my, my): we all know grunge was really about trying to be canadian. lumberjack shirts. neil young solos. we should get royalties from that shit.
"and, in other news, canada has finally won it's copyright infringement legal battle to pay down it's debt with royalties from the 1991 classic 'nevermind'."
but, for real. look at these birth dates. we skip generations.
i've removed appointments.
they all won an election.
and this is the complete list.
macdonald - 1815
mackenzie - 1822
laurier - 1841
borden - 1854
bennett - 1870
mackenzie-king - 1874
st laurent - 1882
diefenbaker - 1895
pearson - 1897
trudeau - 1919
chretien - 1934
martin - 1938
clark - 1939
mulroney - 1939
harper - 1959
trudeau - 1971
zero between 1939 and 1959.
skipped....