Fear of Ontario's deficit drives recent university grad to campaign for the PC party
Samantha Craggs | CBC News | Posted: June 5, 2018 2:19 PM | Last Updated: June 5, 2018
Second in a series of profiles of campaign volunteers and what inspires their activism
CBC Hamilton interviewed first-time campaign volunteers from major political parties and asked what motivated them to get involved, and what's important to them in the June 7 election. This is the second story in that series. The first is here.
Don't pin the social conservative tag on Lucas Oesterreich. He supports LGBTQ rights. He thinks climate change is real. He also has one very real fear — being crushed by debt.
When you think that rebellious punk attitude, you don't think of someone like me who wants budget surpluses. - Lucas Oesterreich
The recent McMaster University grad is trying to start his own business as a policy analyst. He also studied economics, so more than most, he understands interest rates and debt-to-GDP ratio.
He used to be centre left, he said, and still is on social issues. But the more he learned about money, he said, the more he realized his generation could be paying for the deficit for the rest of its life. Now he's CFO for the Ben Levitt PC campaign in Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas.
"All of the parties are saying, 'We'll give you free education. We'll give you all kinds of free stuff,'" said Oesterreich, 25. "But we don't think about the long-term effects of that."
"It's a shame that more young people don't get involved because we're the ones that are eventually going to have to pay for it."
Growing up in Ancaster, Oesterreich always paid attention to politics and current events. By the time he was 10, he said, he was talking politics with his largely apolitical graphic designer parents.
When 9/11 happened, it stirred up his desire for involvement. He and Levitt — who was a year ahead of him in school — organized a penny drive.
At Ancaster High School, Oesterreich founded a debate team. He and Levitt sparred. Then Oesterreich went to the University of Innsbruck in Austria to study economics, and his leaning began to shift.
In 2012, for example, a Macdonald-Laurier Institute report said Ontario was at the greatest risk of defaulting on its debt payments over the next 20 years. In April, Ontario's auditor general predicted the deficit for 2018-19 will be $11.7 billion.
Oesterreich, who just graduated with an honours BA in political science, grew increasingly conservative. On a university campus, he said, it felt rebellious.
"When you think that rebellious punk attitude, you don't think of someone like me who wants budget surpluses," he said.
But "in Canadian universities, it is felt as if there is a more leftward bias, and there is a feeling that conservative voices tend to get silenced on campus. I think that contributed to this underdog mentality."
Oesterreich is pinning his future hopes on the consulting firm he's establishing with two friends — one that will be easily toppled by tax hikes or unstable interest rates. When he places his vote, he said, he looks for a party that talks about cutting back.
"Somebody's going to have to pay the bill one way or the other," he said. "Someone has to deal with it. Someone like me or Ben."