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A root cause of many of the financial challenges now facing millennials and Gen Z is that governments decades ago failed to plan adequately for the future. Today’s extreme weather, housing unaffordability and government deficits are all predictable results of administrations that prioritized short-term political convenience last century over the well-being of those who would become adults in the new millennium.
Short-termism is by no means just a Canadian shortcoming. That’s why promises of long-term thinking are gaining momentum internationally. This fall, the United Nations will host a Summit of the Future at which the secretary-general proposes to appoint a Special Envoy for Future Generations.
Canada will attend the UN Summit. It’s a chance to shine on the international stage because Ottawa already reorganized the entire 2024 budget around a promise of “Fairness for every generation.” But to be truly a global leader, Canada must do more. We need an act to safeguard the well-being of present and future generations.
Such an act has already been made famous in Wales. It establishes seven national goals for well-being, identifies indicators to monitor progress toward them, requires annual reports from accountable ministers, and appoints an independent commissioner to serve as a guardian of the needs of those unborn.
Now, the European Commission President promises to follow suit by appointing a commissioner responsible for intergenerational fairness.
We need similar legislation here at home, because a single budget is unlikely to disrupt the short-term thinking that powers four-year election cycles, and seduces the present to colonize the future. If we are to have half a chance to halt overextraction of resources from the planet, wealth from the housing system, or tax dollars from the young and unborn, Canada must enshrine generational fairness in the machinery of government.
This means appointing a minister with a clear mandate to promote generational fairness across departments, creating an arms-length advisory to guide the cabinet and Treasury, and establishing a commissioner in the Auditor-General’s office to report publicly on progress.
The minister would be guided by Canada’s Quality of Life Framework, along with the national metrics it has established for monitoring well-being. These indicators could inform annual reports on the status of generational fairness in Canada, exploring opportunities to reduce policy tensions between boomers, their kids and grandchildren, while identifying risks to future generations that require mitigation now.
Learning from the Welsh experience, some of the most important work motivated by the new legislation will be performed by the arms-length advisory and commissioner. These independent officials can lead deep dives into topics politicians may judge too politically risky as they campaign for short-term re-election.
So long as the act provides support for such investigations by thought leaders, includes mechanisms to engage everyday citizens, and requires ministers to respond publicly to recommendations (even if they don’t initially accept them), these deep dives have potential to yield transformative influence over public dialogue and debate. This is a prerequisite for policy change.
By doing so, the act would position Canada to modernize policies in ways that are essential to protect the personal finances of millennials and Gen Z from various intergenerational problems I’ve featured in my columns.
That includes the disproportionate use of their taxes to pay for boomers’ income security at the expense of investing adequately in well-being for themselves and their kids.
Or the political expectation that younger folks endure unaffordable costs for rent and home ownership to protect the nest eggs of older homeowners who bank on equity they’ve gained from high housing prices to fuel their retirements.
Or the need to protect our kids from pollution. Since they can’t vote, they count on us to do more to protect a stable climate, clean air, water and natural spaces. This means urgently cutting smog and trash and paying for our pollution – present and past. Yet polls signal many Canadians are attracted by politicians who would reduce these responsibilities, not expand them.
There are no easy fixes to any of these intergenerational tensions.
But we can find solutions if we channel the love that exists between children, parents and grandparents into national legislation that commits to protecting our aging population, strengthening the legacy that boomers leave their offspring, and honing our nation’s skills to plan for the distant future.
That’s why Canada should announce it will enact legislation to safeguard the well-being of present and future generations at the upcoming UN Summit of the Future. You can add your support for this idea at the Generation Squeeze website.
Dr. Paul Kershaw is a policy professor at UBC and founder of Generation SqueezeCanada’s leading voice for generational fairness. He offers policy advice to governments of all party stripes, including the current federal cabinet.