What should the law establish?

  • Securing and advancing wellbeing for all generations must be part of the mandate of a specific Minister.

    First, a dedicated Minister will ensure that fairness between generations is a priority at the center of government. Ministerial-level responsibility demonstrates that it isn’t a peripheral or passing concern, but a fundamental and ongoing consideration in policy-making. 

    Second, a dedicated Minister will serve as the champion for generational fairness at the Cabinet table. Cabinet is where key policy and spending decisions are made, and where trade-offs between options are discussed. The kind of long-term thinking required to make fair decisions about advancing wellbeing for all generations should inform all Cabinet debate.

    Third, Ministerial responsibility creates obligations to document investments and results, via annual departmental planning and reporting requirements. A dedicated Minister will go a long way towards creating the accountability and transparency Canadians should expect.

    Since the policy changes needed to address intergenerational tensions span many federal departments, ideally the designated Minister would sit within a cross-cutting department, like Finance or Treasury.

  • A Commissioner responsible for assessing whether Canada is acting fairly towards all generations

    Similar to the model already in place for the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development (CESD), Canada needs an arm’s length, independent Commissioner for generational fairness. 

    Like the CESD, the Commissioner would be created within the Office of the Auditor General, with a mandate to deliver non-partisan analysis and recommendations on the state of generational fairness in Canada, and the efforts the government is making to achieve it. To ensure transparency for all elected officials and for Canadians, the Commissioner will report directly to parliament.

    The Commissioner will support the government to think longer-term about policy and fiscal priorities, and to engage with citizens to promote open dialogue. There are other models to consider when creating this position. The EU recently appointed its first Commissioner for Intergenerational Fairness, following the example of Wales in 2015. Several other countries have similar formal roles, including Malta, Gibraltar and Hungary.

  • An external Advisory body to deliver independent advice

    A permanent Advisory group will help make sure that government plans to promote wellbeing for present and future generations are grounded in evidence and informed by the experiences of Canadians.

    Composed of diverse members with relevant public policy and budgetary expertise, the Advisory will provide recommend policy and budgetary reforms to better support people of all ages to thrive. Similar to the existing Net-Zero Advisory Body, it will operate independently of electoral politics to ensure the delivery of credible and independent intergenerational analysis.

  • Legislation to safeguard wellbeing for all generations will require federal departments to set and report on specific wellbeing objectives. This means monitoring the generational impacts of existing and new policies, as well as the potential for trade-offs between short- and long-term wellbeing. This analysis and reporting will help expose where the decisions we make today over-extract from our shared fiscal, planetary and housing resources – resources on which younger and future generations also will depend for their lives and livelihoods.

    Canada’s Quality of Life Framework already delivers some valuable data to identify indicators and track progress, though more needs to be done to analyze government spending by age, and assess how Canada invests in wellbeing and prevention compared to illness treatment. Fortunately, Gen Squeeze has evidence-based methods for each of these themes that could easily be adopted.