News & Insights

Most people agree we need to take serious action to address the climate emergency. Working together is our best, and possibly only, chance of solving it. But Canada is facing a major hurdle in its fight against the climate crisis. One of our most important national climate change policies is being challenged in the Supreme Court by provinces that don’t want to take meaningful action.

Clichés be damned! Toronto has shown that when it comes to Airbnb, we can have our cake and eat it too. This week, a provincial tribunal ruled in favour of Toronto’s proposed rules for short-term rentals. The important part is that up to 5,000 Airbnb units could be returned to the long-term residential market in Toronto thanks to the new regulations.

A second provincial court has ruled in favour of Canada's national policy on pricing carbon pollution, and a better future for younger generations. Just before Canada Day, the Ontario Court of Appeal confirmed the federal government's authority to respond to the global climate emergency, including by putting a price on carbon pollution.

When Saskatchewan and Ontario went to court to fight a national carbon price, we formed a coalition and hired lawyers to push back. Our work shows pricing pollution can go hand in hand with affordability, and Canada has — we argue — a constitutional obligation to take emergency-level action to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees.

After honing in on Burnaby — which has the worst rental market in B.C. and the third worst in all of Canada — we've helped the City craft a bold "Quick Start" housing affordability plan to turn things around.

While many of us face serious affordability challenges, our organization knows pricing pollution is not the source of that problem. The source is high costs for housing, child care, postsecondary, transit, etc. — especially since young people’s earnings have stagnated over the last four decades.

The pricing pollution debate heats up as the Saskatchewan and Ontario Courts of Appeal hear arguments about the constitutionality of federal plans to price carbon in provinces that don’t establish their own. Some express heartfelt concerns that pricing pollution hurts everyday Canadians: think commuters, hockey moms shuttling kids to practice or office workers.

For the last four years, Gen Squeeze has been asking the federal government to report on age trends in public finance. We've wanted more analysis and transparency about the intergenerational impacts of budget decisions, and the degree to which governments are currently budgeting for young and old alike.

After years of work — and with help from thousands of Gen Squeeze supporters, MPs and staff — we've secured the first-ever intergenerational analysis in a Canadian federal budget. The 2019 federal budget analysis includes three big wins: read on to find out more.