Premier Kathleen Wynne's recent sojourn into identity politics didn't get much coverage in the mainstream media.

That's a shame.

Considering we're only 10 weeks away from a provincial election, many voters might be interested to hear that Wynne is warning young people that if they don't get out and vote on June 7 the election could, horrors of horrors, be decided by seniors.

No, wait.

Make that white seniors.

Back on March 16, Wynne was speaking to students and staff at Humber College in west Toronto.

While urging the students to take part in the democratic process, Wynne bizarrely played the identity politics card, which, like it or not, is increasingly fragmenting society by labelling people and appealing to their interests based on race, gender, religion, age, sexuality and so on.

"The reality is that young people vote at a much, much lower rate than older people," Wynne told the assembly.

"And I always say when I knock on a door and meet a young person who comes and says, you know, 'I'm not going to vote, it doesn't make a difference,' you know, if you don't vote, then someone who looks like me is going to vote. Some senior person, older than me, some white person. You know, the reality is that that's the demographic that's going to get out and vote. So we need you to be engaged."

Wynne, 64, is right, of course.

Voter turnout is consistently higher for older people than younger people.

And she's quite right to urge young people to be politically engaged and exercise their privilege and right to vote.

And, to be fair, Wynne, wasn't solely making a pitch for the students to vote Liberal. She went on to say, "Of course, I would love you to be supporting us. But, quite frankly, I'd rather that you just come out and make your voice heard, whatever your political stripe is."

But, all that said, Wynne is completely out of line setting up white seniors as some kind of political bogeyman in the eyes of millennials.

At the very least, she's suggesting there's something ominous about older white voters turning out in force.

At worst, she's catering to the increasingly prevailing leftist perspective that while it's taboo to impose racial interpretations on people of colour and minority groups, it's perfectly acceptable to do so with whites — who, according to the 2016 census, make up about 68 per cent of Ontario's population.

Racial prejudice is racial prejudice, regardless of skin colour or demographics.

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If you truly believe in equal rights, it should be no more acceptable to say, "some senior person … some white person," than it is to say, "some black person," or "some Muslim" or "some gay."

It's fair to suggest more than a few white seniors are bound to be offended by Wynne's remarks. As well they might be.

Singling out any racial or cultural group, directly or by implication, as a shadowy spectre is certain to create blowback.

By using older whites as a prop for her argument, Wynne was perilously close to going down a dangerous road.

We know from the American experience that the spread of identity politics has given rise to a backlash that is not only undermining the political and social cohesion of the United States but has given lift to the likes of President Donald Trump.

There's no reason to believe Ontario and the rest of Canada are immune from similar resentments and responses. You would think that Wynne, who is openly gay, would know better than to offhandedly pander to popular but hypocritical biases.

Somewhat ironically, June is not just the month that voters will go to the polls. It's also seniors' month, a month Ontarians are supposed to honour the contributions seniors, regardless of skin colour, make to our communities.

Presumably that includes turning out in droves to vote.

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