Gen Squeeze is deeply appreciative and grateful to work alongside many others committed to creating fair public policy that preserves healthy homes, childhoods and a healthy planet for current and future generations. 

We have a network of tens of thousands of people across Canada, through our email, social, video and podcast platforms. We’re thankful to each and every person who joins us, because joining is a powerful act. 

Evidence tells us that our power to push for a Canada that works for all generations grows with the size of our network. The more people we have behind us, the more loudly we can amplify these voices. A megaphone helps when you’re trying to get the world of politics to sit up and take notice—and every time someone joins our network, the volume is turned up one more notch.

Canada’s ecosystem of change makers

There is a rich ecosystem of academic and community leaders across Canada working to make housing and child care more affordable, advocating for the health of our environment, and assessing whether governments are investing fairly in all ages to promote wellbeing. 

Gen Squeeze complements and reinforces these efforts by contributing our generational perspective and expertise, and identifying opportunities to advance policy solutions that align with our goals. We’re always exploring new opportunities to collaborate, because we know that our calls to action are strengthened when many voices come together. There IS power in numbers!

To learn more about the range of broad and diverse range of individuals and organizations with whom we engage to shape and implement solutions to generational unfairness, please explore the links below.

Gen Squeeze is deeply appreciative and grateful to work alongside many others who are committed to creating fair public policy that works to preserve healthy homes, childhoods and a healthy planet for future generations. 

Gen Squeeze has a network of tens of thousands of people across Canada through our email, social media and podcast platforms.  We’re thankful for each and every person who joins us, because we know that our power grows with the size of our network.  That’s why joining is a powerful act.  The more people we have behind us, the more loudly we can amplify these voices in the world of politics, to motivate decisions makers to act boldly to address generational unfairness.   

There is a rich ecosystem of academic and community leaders in Canada who are working to make housing and child care more affordable, advocating for the health of our environment, and assessing whether governments are investing fairly to promote wellbeing.  Gen Squeeze complements and reinforces the efforts of these leaders by leveraging our unique generational perspective and expertise to catalyze action on the policy solutions that best align with our goals.  At the same time, we’re always exploring new opportunities to collaborate, because we know that our calls to action are strengthened when many voices come together.  There IS power in numbers!

Our coalition

To learn more about the range of broad and diverse range of individuals and organizations with whom we engage to shape and implement solutions to generational unfairness, please explore the links below:

Invest fairly in all generations

Gen Squeeze is leading the way on drawing attention to generational tensions in Canadian public policy, especially when it comes to analyzing government budgets.  There aren’t many voices assessing how we are investing in the wellbeing of different generations, but we are fortunate to also have in Canada L’Institut des générations, a Quebec based non-profit organization that engages in research and dialogue on generational equity.  Gen Squeeze also benefits from ongoing collaboration with Dr. Tamara Krawchenko at the University of Victoria, who is a thought leader on generational equity in Canada.

Internationally, Gen Squeeze partners with groups drawing attention to generational tensions in their respective jurisdictions: the Intergenerational Foundation in the UK, Think Forward in Australia, and the Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations in Germany.  We also are guided by international academics, notably Pieter Vanhuysse at the Danish Institute for Advanced Study.

Invest where health begins

A growing priority for Gen Squeeze is drawing attention to the reams of evidence confirming that health doesn’t start with medical care—it starts where we are born, grow, live, work and age. Unfortunately, analysis of government budgets reveals that spending decisions often don’t align with this evidence. Along with a pan-Canadian team of academic and community partners, we are mobilizing this evidence to motivate governments to budget better for wellbeing, and to challenge Canadians to change the way in which we understand health in Canada.

Led by Gen Squeeze Founder Dr. Paul Kershaw, the Get Well Canada initiative brings together the following team:

• Project team: Daniel Dutton (Dalhousie University), Dr. Lindsay McLaren (University of Calgary), Trish Hennessy (Think Upstream / Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives), Dr. Claire Betker (Scientific Director, National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health), and Olivier Bellefleur (Scientific Director, National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy)
• Knowledge users: Dr. Kelsey Lucyk (Public Health Agency of Canada), Teri Collins (Assistant Deputy Minister responsible for Housing in BC), Jacob Gorenkoff (Canadian Housing Renewal Association), Debbie Stewart (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation), Morna Ballantyne (Child Care Now), Liz Weaver (Tamarack Institute), Scott MacAfee (National Advisory Council on Poverty), Nathaniel Erskine-Smith (MP, Government of Canada)

Housing affordability  

There is a strong community of housing researchers and advocates in Canada, of which Gen Squeeze is a part.  The partnerships we have built on housing are grounded in our leadership or participation in the following two groups. 

Wealth and the Problem of Housing Inequity across Generations:  With funding from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), this Gen Squeeze led Solutions Lab brought together over 70 industry, community and academic experts to explore the role of monetary policy, tax policy, and protective policy on housing unaffordability.

• Monetary policy partners: Adnan Haider (IBM’s Financial Services Practice), Dr. Angela Redish (UBC), Dr. Christopher Ragan (McGill), Ed Steel (Mortgage & Title Insurance Industry Association of Canada), Josef Filipowicz (CMHC), Dr. Lu Han (U of Toronto), Dr. Lynette Purda (Queen’s University), Paul Taylor (Mortgage Professionals Canada), Pedro Antunes (Conference Board of Canada), and Preet Banerjee (MoneyGaps).
• Tax policy partners: Dr. Elisabeth Gugl (U of Victoria), Gillian Petit (U of Calgary), John Dickie (Canadian Federation of Apartment Associations), Dr. Lindsay McLaren (U of Calgary), Marc Lee (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, BC Office), Dr. Shahar Rotberg (CMHC), Steve Pomeroy (Focus Consulting Inc.), and Dr. Tom Davidoff (UBC).
• Protective policy partners: Aleeya Velji (CMHC), Anastasia Mourogova (Dark Matter Labs), Dallas Alderson (Co-Operative Housing Federation of Canada), Duncan MacRae (Watershed Partners), Eric Swanson (Third Space Planning, and former Co-Executive Director of Gen Squeeze who leaves a proud legacy), Jason Allen John (Partna, and independent Mortgage Broker), Jill Atkey, (BC Non-Profit Housing Association), Kira Gerwing (Vancity Credit Union), Kristjana Loptson (CMHC), Nick Montgomery (Arts in Action Society), Thom Armstrong (Co-Operative Housing Federation of BC), and Vicki Martin (CMHC). 

Balanced Supply of Housing University-Community partnership: With funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, this work brings together diverse and interdisciplinary academic and community partners (including Gen Squeeze) to investigate how to create a more equitable distribution of housing resources in Canada.  The Balanced Supply of Housing team is part of the broader Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative, and has played a key role developing the latest version of the housing policy solutions framework on which Gen Squeeze relies to ease the housing squeeze.   

Family affordability

Ensuring that all Canadians can afford to start a family (if they want to) is where Gen Squeeze began its work – and remains a key area of focus today.  Our family policy research is ongoing, in partnership with a pan-Canadian group of early development scholars, including Dr. Barry Forer (UBC), Dr. Martin Guhn (UBC), Dr. Magdalena Janus (McMaster University), Dr. Nazeem Muhajarine (University of Saskatchewan), Dr. Marni Brownell (University of Manitoba), among others.

Elements of our family policy solutions framework align with, and draw from, the work of the national Child Care Now movement, and the $10aDay plan championed by the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC and Early Childhood Educators of BC. The origins of the $10aday branding embraced by the Coalition initiated lie in work Gen Squeeze did over a decade ago to shape national child care recommendations, in partnership with the Human Early Learning Partnership.  Together, the complementary activities of Gen Squeeze and leading child care advocates have had provincial and national impact, with the federal government launching the historic $10 a day national child care plan in its 2021 budget.

Climate change 

Gen Squeeze’s focus on climate policy is supported by research from the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices, and especially the expertise of David Sawyer, its principal economist. Our framework aggregates and adds to existing policy frameworks including the Pan Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project, the Generation Energy framework, the Re-energizing Canada pathways, the recommendations of the Expert Panel on Sustainable Finance, the recommendations of the Expert Panel on Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience, the report of Project Drawdown, and the 2021 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.