Budget analyses
Governments from coast to coast to coast have rolled out their spending plans for 2023.
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 generational fairness is a big part of what we do. Our budget push starts months before any actual budget is released, and it continues long afterwards, because budgets are a year-round process. 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.
Four themes regularly show up in our budget asks:
- Make life more affordable by reducing the cost of things like child care and housing.
- Don’t tackle affordability by scaling back climate action – especially pollution pricing. It’s false economy, given the enormous costs of climate change. And it’s intergenerationally unjust when younger generations face the lion’s share of climate risks.
- Reconnect home prices with local earnings because a home should be in reach of what hard work can earn. This means taxing housing wealth differently.
- Improve accountability by filling in and fixing current data gaps – including what we spend by age, what we spend on treating illness vs creating health, and how housing price inflation is measured.
If you’ve seen our comprehensive policy solutions frameworks, you’ll probably recognize these themes. They’re among our top priorities to improve the health and wellbeing of all generations, from the early years onward. We’ve made progress, but we’ll keep working on them until we convince governments to make budgets that work for all generations!
Federal Budgets
- Analysis of the 2023 Federal Budget
- Recommendations for the 2023 Federal Budget
- Analysis of the 2022 Federal Budget
- Recommendations for the 2022 Federal Budget
- Analysis of the 2021 Federal Budget
- Recommendations for the 2021 Federal Budget
- Analysis of the 2020 Federal Fall Economic Update
- Analysis of 2016 Federal Budget
- Analysis of 2015 Federal Budget
British Columbia Budgets
Ontario Budgets
Alberta Budgets
- Analysis of the 2023 Alberta Budget
- Recommendations for the 2023 Alberta Budget
- Alberta struggles with most generationally unfair budget in Canada
- Alberta spends wastefully on medical care at expense of younger generations
- If Alberta NDP sticks to its platform, province will budget largest age gap in Canada
- Less generational equity than any province: Alberta budget 2015
- Alberta is the Next Government to Budget for Generations that Organize
Budgeting for Wellbeing and Generational Fairness
- Health in All Policies in the Time of Covid-19 Nov 10, 2020
- How governments have underinvested in younger people for 40 years Feb 19, 2020
- A #TaxShift to Benefit the Vast Majority May 16, 2018
- Intergenerational Injustice in Canadian Public Finance Jan 29, 2018
- The Need for Health in All Policies In Canada Jan 22, 2018
- Containing Canadian Medical Care Spending Dec 19, 2016
- Federal Favouritism Feb 19, 2015
- Measuring the Age Gap in Canadian Social Spending Feb 06, 2015
EXPLORE MORE
VIDEO: The Bad Budget Bunny shows why governments must stop hiding generational unfairness
PODCAST: What do Frankenstein and government budgets have in common?
SOLUTIONS: Invest where health begins
SOLUTIONS: Invest fairly in all generations
Six reasons why you should give a %@$&*! about government budgets