BC Makes Historic Commitment To Generational Fairness In 2024 Budget
Join us on our February 28 Community Call to discuss why this victory matters
Budget season is an important time of year for Generation Squeeze. It’s when we get to see what difference all the effort we’ve put in throughout the year has made.
Historically, government budgets have perpetuated generational tensions in our housing, affordability, medical care, and climate crises. But this year, we are hopeful for change.
We’ve been working especially hard behind the scenes to urge governments to invest fairly in all ages. And we're thrilled to announce that this work is paying off, with a great start to the 2024 Budget season in BC.
The newly released BC Budget 2024 Strategic Plan marks some pivotal progress in our journey towards a Canada that works for all ages. Recognizing Generation Squeeze’s leadership (and directly citing our research), the Plan echoed many messages we’ve been pushing for more than a decade:
BC also makes some unprecedented commitments to generational fairness – affirming our principle of planning for all generations. However, as we point out in our full budget analysis, the province still has some distance to go to line up spending priorities with this commitment.
This promise is a first for Canada and a huge victory for our 43,000+ supporters. After more than a decade of sustained, collective effort, we’ve turned our country’s compass a few degrees towards a fairer future, in which young and old alike have a chance to thrive.
“We’re hugely grateful to Premier Eby and his Cabinet for inviting us to share our insights and acting on our research,” said Paul Kershaw, Gen Squeeze founder and UBC health policy professor. “By putting generational fairness at the strategic heart of this budget, our leaders are charting a better course for BC’s future.”
As Paul mentioned on Global News, at long last, one government has formally acknowledged that our public spending patterns are failing younger Canadians – and vowed to change that. Now we need more governments across Canada to follow BC’s lead.
With other provincial and federal budgets on the horizon, please join us in urging your elected reps to commit to generational fairness as a guiding principle in their spending plans. See our budget toolkit page for a full list of ways you can help.
Following Gen Squeeze’s briefing to the Liberal Cabinet last summer, Prime Minister Trudeau made some big promises to younger Canadians. Together, we can work to make sure he lives up to them in the coming federal budget:
- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Don’t forget about our next Community Call on February 28. We hope you’ll join us at this free event to talk about BC’s game-changing commitment, and what lies ahead in budgets to come.
Great to see! Who pays for this spending is such an important question. I also think there's going to be strong incentives for governments to ignore that someone is still paying for (long-term) revenue-neutral, or close to it, programs like BC builds program for middle-income housing. On the one hand, it's great to see a plan to keep some of this housing in the hands of non-profits long-term. On the other hand, you are talking about households who in previous generations would have owned. They are still locked out, and while there's absolutely a benefit to the security of non-market housing even if it starts out close to market rents, instead of getting to build equity like previous generations did renters are effectively paying for housing that in the long-run will be socially-valuable below market housing. This is a little disappointing in combination with cuts for housing funding.
I did see that they might eventually also have a program for owned housing, so no complaints about starting somewhere though!