BC has become remarkably good at protecting the security and living standards many older residents have already achieved, while becoming less effective at creating conditions that enable those still building their lives to succeed. This division isn’t what we want around our family tables — and it shouldn’t guide decisions at the provincial budget table.

British Columbians want the young people in our lives to thrive, whether they are our children or grandchildren, friends or neighbours. Their wellbeing matters today, and our shared future depends on the lives they are able to build.

BC’s next government should turn that commitment into a clear budgeting rule: for every new $1 invested in healthy retirements, invest $1 in the wellbeing of children, parents, and young workers.

Why is this necessary? Because provincial spending choices aren’t reflecting the commitment we make to younger people in our own lives.

BC’s 2026 budget plans to increase annual medical care spending by $3.2 billion by 2028 – about 70% of which will go to seniors. That’s more than double the $1.4 billion added to K–12 education, child care, trades training, and social services combined.

Across the budget, our analysis estimates roughly $2,100 in additional annual spending per resident aged 65+, compared with about $440 per resident under 45. That’s nearly five times as much new investment per person for older residents as for younger ones.

The party that forms BC’s next government must break this entrenched pattern.

Needing more medical care later in life isn’t the problem. Longer, healthier lives are something to celebrate. The problem is that successive governments failed to adequately prepare for the predictable increases in demand and costs that accompany population aging.

Protecting healthy retirements for our aging loved ones is a priority. But avoiding hard truths about how to pay for them — then running up deficits and squeezing investments in wellbeing earlier in life — passes the consequences of poor planning to younger generations.

That is especially unfair given the uneven distribution of financial pressures.

Older British Columbians have lower rates of poverty, higher incomes, and the most wealth compared to other age groups. They are also more likely to own their homes, and many have gained substantial housing wealth from the same rising prices that lock younger people out.

Source: BC Poverty Reduction Strategy Annual Report

For younger British Columbians, hard work no longer pays off the way it did for previous generations. They must now work 18 years to save a down payment on an average home — over three times more than the 5 years it took those entering the housing market in the 1970s. As the dream of home ownership is pushed out of reach, Millennials and Gen Z face high unemployment, record student debt, and unaffordable child care.

These pressures are eroding hope. Research documents that the decline in younger Canadians’ life satisfaction is exceeded only by declines in Venezuela, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. Restoring their wellbeing must become an urgent priority for BC’s next government.

The 2026 budget must be the last to invest with such unequal urgency in young and old.

We can support healthy retirements for our aging loved ones while investing in healthy starts and secure futures for their children and grandchildren. That means adequately funding affordable child care, quality education, secure homes, adequate incomes, and a healthy environment.

This election, ask every candidate to commit: for each new dollar invested in healthy retirements, invest a dollar in the wellbeing of children, parents, and young workers.

Matching new investments in young and old dollar for dollar must become the rule for the 2027 budget — and every budget that follows. Younger generations should be able to count on public investment that helps them build their lives, just as their aging loved ones can count on support later in life.

That’s how we will stop younger generations from falling further behind.