A few years ago, I attended a panel discussion at a gathering of Canada’s conservative movement. A number of well-known Conservative MPs gave speeches, and during the Q&A that followed, the moderator asked each to offer some insight into how they thought conservatives might make their party and its program more appealing to young people. As the solitary socialist in the room, I found myself privately scoffing as most or all issued some version of the same, cartoonishly out-of-touch reply: “Young people love freedom, and so do we!”

Whatever this reductive declaration was supposed to mean, it was abundantly clear — now as then — that the word “freedom” implied something very different to the people on stage than to the majority of young voters who had of late tended to refrain from backing the Conservatives. In the 2015 federal election, for example, despite an unprecedented increase in youth turnout, the Conservative Party had finished firmly behind both the centrist Liberals and the social-democratic NDP among those aged 18–24.

The sentiment nevertheless had a certain coherence given its source.