Invest fairly in all generations: news & insights

Meeting the goal of generational fairness means our legacy can’t be large deficits. Meeting this goal will require addressing the massive revenue shortfall but it will be nearly impossible if too many of us believe the path to balanced budgets is as easy as eliminating spending on things we love to hate.

The federal government is already demonstrating that ‘fairness for every generation’ isn’t just a convenient slogan. Every day since March 27, the Prime Minister has announced concrete policies to improve affordability for younger Canadians — policies which align with ingredients in our comprehensive housing and family solutions frameworks. Here are our takeaways on recent budget promises about restoring housing affordability and supporting young families, along with questions we'll be asking when the budget is tabled.

Never before has a government been bold enough to organize their budget to respond to the problem that “hard work isn’t paying off [today] like it did for previous generations.” For young people across Canada struggling with unaffordable housing and other costs that have risen far faster than earnings from paid work, this is a welcome validation of the systemic root causes of the challenges they face.

The real fiscal signal in the 2024 budget is that the Ford government has a serious revenue problem, despite investing little to reduce unaffordability pressures. Provincial plans to restore a balanced budget by means of spending restraint and revenue from future economic growth is on shaky ground. Younger voters inherit more debt, but little help with major costs of living like postsecondary and housing. Here’s our take on why that is a bad generational deal.

Canada will struggle to raise funding for national defence because previous governments failed to plan adequately to pay for aging baby boomers. Since the public gives little attention to this failure, and little credit to the Trudeau government for dealing with the problem now, military spending may suffer collateral damage.

“There’s a generational divide right now in this country between people who got into the housing market at a time when that was a reasonable thing to do regardless of how much money your parents had in their bank account.” You might think that Gen Squeeze wrote that line. But we’re happy to report it’s from another important voice: Federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser.

Gen Squeeze Founder Paul Kershaw was on Parliament Hill this week to remind Canadians why most of us supported paying for our pollution in the first place: “[W]e pay for our pollution because we love our kids, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. We have a duty to pay for our pollution for them… because there’s absolutely no escaping that we put our kid’s health, safety, air, drinking water, and food at risk when we pollute.”

Alberta’s 2024 budget ramps up funding for a medical care system that already spent more per person than in B.C. and Ontario, while achieving poorer health outcomes.

Deficits generally are no longer partisan or ideological. They reflect a structural problem in government budgets. Unfortunately, the vitriol that often accompanies talk of taxation impedes the genuine dialogue required to fix this problem, inclining politicians to shy away from speaking hard truths about the fiscal reckoning we now face. Older affluent voters, we need your help to address this problem.

Last week’s B.C. budget features a hard truth that, until now, had been swept under the carpet in the province and elsewhere across the country. Previous governments did not prepare adequately for the medical care Baby Boomers consume in retirement.