While much is made of his age, Jäger Rosenberg,18, who is running as the West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country MP candidate for the New Democratic Party of Canada, is no newbie to politics.
He previously ran provincially to be the candidate for the NDP in the Powell River Sunshine Coast.
(That spot went to Randene Neill, who went on to become MLA for the region; she now serves as the Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship.)
At the Squamish all-candidates meeting on Tuesday night, Rosenberg held his own against the other candidates, focusing on housing, mental health, lowering the voting age, and other hot-button topics.
The Squamish Chief caught up with Rosenberg just before he headed off to another all-candidates meeting on the Sunshine Coast on Wednesday.
What follows is a version of that phone conversation edited for length and clarity.
Q: Having been involved with two campaigns now—provincial and federal—how do they compare?
A: They're quite similar. This one's been much more fast-paced. With the provincial one, it was kind of a hurry-up-and-wait. This one is boom, boom, boom. Every day there’s something to do. So, it is a very different pace, but overall, pretty similar. This one has been very, very positive. The mentality of the country has really turned around. People are optimistic about a potential better future, which I think is quite good.
Q: With people seeing your age, it's probably a bit of ageism, but the question is, this isn't just you running for the experience, right? If you actually got elected, you're ready to go?
A: I'm running to win. I'm ready to go. I have lots of experience. I've run before. I'm involved in the NDP executive. I've been active in politics fully since I was 13, and involved partially since I was nine. We need more regular people, and you don't need to be a rich, connected, billionaire career politician in order to serve people.
Q: You've seen the polls with the NDP being quite down right now. (On April 9, the site 388Canada has the NDP projected to secure seven seats, down from 24 when Parliament was dissolved.) What do you make of that?
A: I like to put it in the perspective of history. The same thing has happened every time a prime minister has resigned and been replaced by a new one. The new prime minister gets a polling boost for the first few weeks, and the NDP drops. Then the media talks about the NDP being done, and then once the leaders' debates start, it turns around. And we always improve a lot. You know, in 2019, we were polling behind the Greens at the start of the campaign, and we were being written off. And then, we shot way up after the leaders' debate and had a minority Parliament where we've gotten a lot of good things through since then. And, we don't have polling on the local level. We don't vote for prime ministers, we vote for MPs. Things change. The only poll that really matters is the one on election day.
Q: Why is the NDP the party you were most comfortable running to be MP for?
A: Well, it's a party that's really rooted in the grassroots. One of my main passions is people-politics and the Liberal Party, they say good things during elections, but they don't deliver once they're in power. They're in it for billionaires and millionaires and big CEOs.
And I'm LGBTQ, and the Conservatives want to take away my rights, and I could never support a party that doesn't support my rights.
Q: What else do you hear from your peers in terms of what they're really worried about?
A: I always talk about mental health. For people of my generation, it is a huge concern. You know, when I was in high school, I didn't know a single person who didn't have some kind of depression, anxiety, some kind of issue like that. Because really, life is so hard—how are we going to afford a home? What's going to happen with the environment? There’s all those stressors.
Our education system is, frankly, outdated, and that's no fault of the teachers we have. They're trying their best to make a good situation for students, but it's designed to make obedient factory workers, and that's not the society we live in anymore.
Youth feel like they don't have a voice because they don't. The voting age is higher than it should be, and when they do vote, politicians don't really tailor their message to young people that much. They just assume they're not going to come out and vote. So, there's no good option for them. It is really hard to find a party that speaks to you as a young person because they don't go out and talk to you that much.
Q: On your social media, I saw you encourage people not to vote out of fear. Can you elaborate on that?
A: We're voting out of fear, and it's not productive and it is not healthy. It's a symptom of our first-past-the-post voting system. Everyone is trying to convince you that the other party is scarier. And then once we get into a two-party system, we've seen what that's done in America; it has really, really destroyed their country, and their democracy is on the brink of complete collapse. We're quite lucky in Canada to have a multi-party system. You need to vote for solutions. Vote for the policy and leadership you think is best, not because you're scared of what else is out there.
Q: What would you say to other young people, who may be looking up to you and looking at what you've done? What is your advice for them?
A: If you believe in something, go and do it. Don't wait around for someone to be the saviour, because that's not going to happen. If you think there's something wrong with the world, don't just sit around and complain. Do the work. Make the difference. Even one voice can be very powerful and can really make a difference in the world.
Learn more about Rosenberg, his party and platform on the NDP website.
Other candidates for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country include the incumbent Liberal MP Patrick Weiler, the Conservative Party's Keith Roy, Lauren Greenlaw of the Green Party of Canada, Peyman Askari of the People’s Party of Canada, and Gordon Jeffrey of the Parti Rhinocéros Party.
