Ottawa’s “Fairness For Every Generation Budget” Is A Big Step In The Right Direction
A Successful Budget Season for Generation Squeeze
As we acknowledged back at the beginning of government budget season, our focus on tracking where governments invest might not seem terribly interesting – but it’s critical because budgets chart the course for everything governments do. Our research shows that successive governments haven’t planned well for the cost of securing healthy retirements for the large number of retiring baby boomers. To compensate, leaders of all political stripes are growing public debt and squeezing investments in younger generations to protect medical and income supports for retirees. It’s no wonder that Canada has one of the biggest discrepancies in the world between the happiness of younger (ranked 58th), and older (ranked 8th) citizens.
Finally, political leaders at the provincial and federal levels are starting to recognize that we’re in desperate need of change.
A couple of months back, the BC NDP budget made an unprecedented commitment to generational fairness (and directly cited our research).
The Federal government then went even further, anchoring the 2024 budget in a promise of “Fairness For Every Generation” – and using Gen Squeeze language throughout to describe the challenges facing younger Canadians.
Naming generational fairness as a critical lens for provincial and federal budgets moves us that much closer to getting on the table the budget and policy changes needed to resolve generational tensions. We’re proud to say that our small team – strengthened by the thousands of Canadians who stand with us – helped power the work and influence required to reach this milestone. After being invited to dozens of meetings with leaders in BC and Ottawa to advocate for investing in wellbeing at all ages, it feels like this hard work is beginning to pay off.
Housing is a good example. Paul met with leaders in the office of the Federal Housing Minister to discuss how housing has become the epicenter of generational tensions in Canada. It’s clear they listened, because Minister Sean Fraser has now acknowledged the “generational divide” on housing, and promised to “tackl[e] the issue of generational fairness”. He also quoted our data about how a decline in the ratio of working-age Canadians to retirees has made it especially hard to balance government budgets.
Paul also had numerous conversations with senior advisors in the Ministry of Finance, reminding them about the generational tensions in past Federal budgets and what could be done to solve them. It’s no coincidence that “Fairness For Every Generation” emerged as the main theme of Budget 2024.
Paul’s full-page analysis of the 2024 budget in the Globe and Mail explains why making generational fairness a focal point for fiscal planning is such a significant development in and of itself:
“The federal budget always comes with a title summarizing its focus. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s early budgets emphasized a ‘strong middle class,’ while the 2024 budget promises ‘fairness for every generation.’
Never before has a federal budget grappled with how class dynamics have been distorted by how a person’s age affects their standing in the housing system. Income matters less than in the past. Secure housing and home equity matter more, privileging those of us who bought into the market decades ago.
The 2024 budget grapples with these class distortions as the starting point for a new fiscal framework, observing that: ‘Millennials and Gen Z are watching the middle-class dream become less and less achievable. They worry that they won’t ever be able to afford the kinds of homes they grew up in.”
For the first time, Ottawa is acknowledging that there are inequities between generations and that they create tensions in our public policies which play out differently for younger and older Canadians. As Paul affirms: “[t]his acknowledgment is a game changer, because the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have one.”
Recognizing generational fairness isn’t ‘business as usual’, and it isn't just a new spin on helping the middle class succeed. It’s an entirely different way of thinking about policy and budget priorities – one with the potential to transform current imbalances in our efforts to promote stability and well-being for all ages.
The 2024 budget brought generational fairness into the limelight
Google Trends data shows that Canadians’ interest in “generational fairness” peaked after the budget was tabled.
The budget also sparked many conversations about generational fairness. An article in The Hub detailed how “younger Canadians are living in the aftermath of a transformation that has eroded the social contract between generations”. A piece in the Globe and Mail described how “Canada’s Budget basically cements structural deficits forever as the interest charges on Federal government debt soar to over $65 billion per year…That, folks, is not being generationally fair”. Another article explained “what a ‘fairness for every generation’ budget would have actually included”.
We’re the first to acknowledge that a single budget will never be enough to resolve the generational tensions that have crept into our policies over decades. That’s why our budget commentary and Paul’s Globe & Mail coverage outline persistent age imbalances in federal spending and draw attention to some of the thornier generational issues Budget 2024 still sweeps under the carpet.
But for now, let’s just take a moment to celebrate that the path toward a Canada that works for all generations is being broadly discussed in the public square. Not so long ago, popular culture seemed to suggest that the biggest financial issue facing Millenials and Gen Z was an obsession with lattes and avocado toast.
So while this budget is not a panacea, it is a significant step in the right direction.
That’s all for this time, thanks for reading!