Invest fairly in all generations: news & insights

Two years into the rollout of federal funding for $10-a-day child care, the plan still isn’t firing on all cylinders. But it isn’t a sign that the plan is broken. It signals that provinces are playing politics with federal funding rather than urgently reducing financial hardships facing young families.

We're thrilled to announce pivotal progress in our journey towards a Canada that works for all ages. BC has made an unprecedented commitment to generational fairness in the province’s 2024 spending plan.

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.

Older Canadians worked and lived in an era when blue-collar jobs could pay enough to purchase a home. With the wealth they have since acquired from rising home values, many have ascended to the ranks of the affluent. The financial industry recognizes this. Public opinion does too. It’s time for governments to catch up, by revisiting social-spending priorities and revenue plans to pay for the investments that citizens want.

The deficits announced in Ottawa’s fall economic statement remind us that previous governments never worked out how to pay for the healthy retirement of baby boomers. The personal finances of younger Canadians are collateral damage.

Federal parties have misdiagnosed the biggest changes in 2023 Fall Economic Statement. Canada needs a federal task force on generational fairness to correct these misperceptions of federal finances.

Despite historic government investments in child care, Canadian families still find themselves squeezed by rising costs, scarce supports, and services that are difficult to access. Government budgets still invest more urgently in retirees than younger Canadians — even when new child care spending is added in. Gen Squeeze is paving the way for much-needed policy change with a new solutions framework to support young families.

Nobody likes to be challenged about whether they earned all that they have. Some get defensive when I talk about winning the “lottery of timing” by becoming a homeowner years ago, or when I raise concerns that younger Canadians inherit unaffordability and climate problems in which I’m partly implicated. Breaking through this defensiveness is necessary if Canada is to work once again for young and old alike.

Today, November 16, 2023, is the first global Intergenerational Fairness Day. The urgent need to reverse the deteriorating well-being of younger and future generations stretches beyond Canada. Voices from the US, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Japan, Nigeria, and Australia as well as United Nations Foundation Next Generation Fellows have joined together to call on governments to preserve what is sacred – a healthy childhood, home, and planet – so that we can all be proud of the legacy we leave for those who follow. 

Financial security matters more for our health than access to doctors. Whether you are concerned about declining affordability or growing medical care pressures, governments need to better balance spending on medical care with other priorities that are critical to our well-being, such as reducing poverty, the costs of housing and child care, and climate risks.