Trudeau & Freeland on restoring Canada's promise to young & future generations

Canada's top two decision makers met with our supporters at town halls in Vancouver in a jam-packed June

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for us here at Generation Squeeze, which is why you haven’t heard from us via this newsletter in a little while. We’ve been fighting for generational fairness by meeting with some pretty influential people (as you may have gathered from the title of this email). More about what exactly we’ve been up to below, but first an administrative note.

We’ll be taking a short break from writing these Substack posts for the next couple of weeks. We look forward to seeing you here again later this summer. Until then, feel free to find us in the Substack chat where we always look forward to hearing from you. If you haven’t already, we hope you’ll also sign up for our monthly updates and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, X/Twitter, and YouTube.

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On June 25, Gen Squeeze hosted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for an invite-only Town Hall in Vancouver about how his government will live up to the budget's promise of Fairness for Every Generation. Gen Squeeze Founder Paul Kershaw and the PM explored what it means to not “let young people down," just as new polling found that over half of young Canadians think that “politicians are more interested in promoting and protecting the interests of older generations than people my age.”

Watch the video or listen to Hard Truths for the Prime Minister’s candid comments on housing, intergenerational solidarity, and what it takes to make change in the world of politics.

On June 20, we sat down with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland for another Town Hall in Vancouver. Paul and the Minister had a wide-ranging conversation on topics suggested by the audience: ramping up climate action and $10/day child care, affording a home, dealing fairly with deficits, etc. 

Listen to our podcast to hear the conversation, including the Minister’s personal stories about what motivated her to put generational fairness at the centre of the budget!

For those keeping score, it’s a huge win that our Hard Truths podcast now features federal leaders from the Green, NDP and Liberal parties talking about generational fairness. We’re working hard to get the federal Conservatives to join us too, to showcase that caring for the wellbeing of all generations isn’t a partisan issue.

For the team here at Gen Squeeze, the biggest take away from these events is what they signal about our shared success raising awareness about generational fairness. The blank looks we got 12 years ago when we started have been replaced by the beginnings of a national conversation. We should all feel proud about Minister Freeland's praise:

“I also want to recognize the work and contribution that Paul and the Generation Squeeze team have done… Generation Squeeze, in your work, really has put [generational fairness] on the national agenda, and you created kind of a body of thinking that was very helpful for us to draw on.”

— Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland

To build on this momentum, the next step is generational fairness legislation – to help ensure current commitments remain at the heart of future budgets. We hope you’ll add your voice to our call for an Act to Safeguard the Wellbeing of Present and Future Generations.

We asked the PM about this action – here’s what he had to say:

“I think it's a really interesting idea, and I think it's something that you and I can probably work together on.”

— Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

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That’s all for this post. We hope you enjoy your summer break!