Analyze budgets and election platforms
Elections and budgets are key moments in a democracy, when political leaders are especially likely to listen to voters. But good citizens who are squeezed for time and money may not have the bandwidth to make sense of hundreds of pages of party platforms and government budgets. That’s why Gen Squeeze works year-round to decipher these documents for you and to influence what's being offered. Our Voters Guides and budget analyses bring you the lowdown on what politicians are promising and what we recommend they do to advance our goal of making Canada work for all generations.
Elections
Generation Squeeze's Voters Guides deliver rigorous, non-partisan and evidence-based assessments of the commitments made by political parties on issues that matter for generational fairness. Our mission is to help voters better understand how far each party's platform goes towards actually solving big problems that prop up our broken generational system.
Why party platforms? Because they will directly shape the budgets implemented by the party that is elected and forms government. If we can get parties to commit to policies that will help younger Canadians during elections, we are more likely to get governments that implement budgets that promote wellbeing for all generations.
Budgets
Do you care about how governments spend the money they collect? If you’re like us here at Gen Squeeze, following the money is important. Each year, governments create budgets that set out priorities and assign money to them. If something’s not in the budget, it’s pretty unlikely to happen.
That’s why pushing governments to design their budgets to promote wellbeing from the early years onwards is a big part of what we do. That work starts months before budgets are released, and continues long afterwards. Through it all, we share our recommendations and analyses so that you can decide if you support proposed priorities, and if they are supported by evidence.
Haven’t thought about budgets before? Don’t worry... here are three things we think everyone should know:
- Gen Squeeze has repeatedly shown that governments spend far less to support younger people than older age groups, despite the growing time, money, service and climate squeeze they face.
- Media often misses the biggest budget stories. The focus tends to be on spending that’s flashy and new (but often small), overlooking what we spend on the biggest ticket items — medical care and old age security.
- Budgets make a news splash for a few days a year — but the real opportunity for influence is months before… that’s why Gen Squeeze’s budget work is year-round.
