While there are many problems to solve, our strategy is working!
We get results
The Squeeze in housing, child care, climate change and government budgets that don't work for all generations are major problems we're trying to fix by conducting cutting-edge research, and supporting Canadians to mobilize this research to achieve policy change.
Here's some ways that we've "Squeezed back":
Families
- Historic billion dollar investments in $10 a day child care by the BC and federal governments
- Improvements to parental leave
Housing
- The formal inclusion of “young adults” in the National Housing Strategy as a “vulnerable group” – making them eligible for $billions from which they were excluded in early drafts of the strategy
- The first ever tax on empty homes in North America
- Eliminating limitless rent increases in Ontario for units built before 2019, and shaping Ontario’s Fair Housing Plan
- Changes to municipal housing policy, including in Vancouver, Burnaby and Toronto, and approval of dozens of new rental housing developments facing NIMBY’ism
- Regulating short term rentals in Vancouver and Toronto to prioritize housing as homes for locals rather than accommodation for tourists
Wellbeing Budgets
- A shift in BC to reduce income taxes by taxing unhealthy home prices more, including by adding new taxes on homes over $3 million, and expanding the BC foreign buyers’ tax
- The first-ever reporting of age trends in federal public finance
Climate change
- Successful intervention into the Courts of Saskatchewan, Ontario and the Supreme Court of Canada to defend the constitutionality of pricing pollution on the grounds it is needed to promote population health and intergenerational equity.
As a result, we’re now recognized as one of Canada’s leading thinkers about generational equity. Our founder, Dr. Paul Kershaw, received the award for Academic of the Year in 2016 from the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC for his Gen Squeeze research and knowledge mobilization. Twice the Canadian Political Science Association has honoured Kershaw with national prizes for his gender and politics research.
Gen Squeeze has received the award for BC’s Affordable Housing Champion in 2017 from the provincial Housing Central coalition, while the Government of Canada awarded Kershaw and Gen Squeeze its inaugural prize for excellence in moving “Knowledge to Action” on housing in 2018.
Still, so much more work remains to make Canada work for all generations.
Join us to achieve more policy victories to ease the squeeze!
Next:
Learn why we focus on intergenerational fairness and wellbeing.
