Election news & insights

Our supporter shares his "New Perspective on Voting" to promote longer-term thinking across generations. Voting in solidarity with younger people — who stand to inherit growing climate risks and costs, rising government debts, and prohibitively unaffordable housing — is a concrete way for today’s retirees to be good ancestors to those who follow them. And perhaps the prospect of having their political influence amplified could be the nudge more younger people need to make sure they show up on election days.

As 2023 wraps up, we decided to pause and take stock of the headway we've made this year. Here are five highlights that leave us feeling proud, grateful and inspired to keep marching down the long, slow, winding road to generational fairness.

Talk of “youth issues” is distracting, drawing attention from the root causes of the problems, which have less to do with younger generations than their treatment by older ones as a result of past policy decisions. To begin to fix this, Ottawa should launch a general fairness council to investigate why Canada no longer works fairly for all generations.

For people across Canada, there’s reason to be concerned about the trajectory Alberta just locked in for the next four years, especially when it comes to climate.

Affordability is a top concern for Alberta voters. So it is surprising that the United Conservative Party and the NDP have blind spots on this issue, especially when it comes to younger Albertans. 

Alberta’s United Conservative Party delivers one of the most generationally unfair budgets in Canada, by legislating a large gap in spending between citizens age 65-plus and those under age 45.

Alberta is two steps ahead of BC, Ontario and Quebec when it comes to housing affordability. This economic advantage should be protected by all Albertans – and especially by political leaders as they gear up for the May 2023 election.

Climate change features in the platforms of all parties in the federal election, though the breadth and depth of their commitments vary. So how do you know if the actions to which parties are committing will really move us towards the goal of holding climate change to 1.5 degree Celsius, as agreed to by Canada in the Paris Agreement?

It’s great to see the parties upping their game when it comes to housing policy. All recognize that we have a dire problem. All appear to know that there is no “silver bullet” policy that will save the day. And all instead are proposing something more akin to “silver buckshot” by recommending changes to a variety of policy levers.

The pandemic has shown us how fortunate we are to enjoy publicly funded medical care, strong health infrastructure, and a committed and resilient health work force. Unfortunately, it has also highlighted the gaps and inequities that we knew existed prior to COVID-19 – but which we have been far too slow to address.