Our story

Generation Squeeze is blazing trails to a Canada that works for all generations, where young and old alike can thrive. We champion generational fairness to preserve what Canadians hold sacred — a healthy childhood, home and planet — so we can all leave a proud legacy.

We are a charitable THINK & CHANGE Tank with a 12-year track record of shaping public dialogue and influencing policy to create lasting systems change. As a university-community collaboration, the Generation Squeeze Lab and Charity combine forces to give knowledge a mighty megaphone in the halls of power.

THINK

The Gen Squeeze Lab at the University of British Columbia's School of Population & Public Health examines Canada's crises through the lens of generational fairness and develops policy solutions. Our non-partisan budget analyses and voters guides cut through political noise to hold governments accountable to young and future generations. We're a breath of fresh credibility and academic rigour in an era of misinformation.

CHANGE

The Gen Squeeze Charity amplifies the impact of our research and solutions at the highest levels of government. We rally our 43,000+ supporters and allies to stand behind The Lab's solutions. This network grows our power to advise provincial and federal leaders, providing them with evidence and courage to take the bold steps needed to make Canada work for all ages.

OUR APPROACH

We need more than facts on our side to fix Canada's broken generational system — especially when the facts challenge values and assumptions in place for decades. That’s why a big part of what we do is help people understand and talk about problems through the lens of generational fairness.

We research some of Canada's biggest crises and synthesize the best available evidence into comprehensive policy solutions. These game plans outline the goals, principles, and concrete actions needed to make Canada work for all generations.

We advise federal and provincial governments about our research and policy solutions, to help our leaders make more informed and generationally fair decisions. We also work year-round to shape policy priorities in government budgets and election platforms.

We inform citizens about their governments' spending plans and priorities. Our non-partisan Voters Guides and budget analyses cut through the noise to explain what politicians are promising and how fairly they're investing in all ages. This is also how we're rejuvenating democracy.

We're building a coalition of 43,000+ supporters and allies, because we know our power grows with the size of our network. We're part of a rich ecosystem of academic and community leaders making housing and child care more affordable, advocating for a healthy environment, and promoting wellbeing for all ages.

All of this work is grounded in evidence about what it takes to create systemic change:

OUR HISTORY

More than a decade ago, Dr. Paul Kershaw, a professor at the UBC School of Population and Public Health, recognized the wellbeing of younger Canadians was deteriorating. The generations raising kids were (and still are) squeezed by lower earnings, higher costs, growing debts, and a changing climate. In 2012, he organized Gen Squeeze as a university-community collaboration to ‘squeeze back’ and reverse these alarming trends.

We made progress, but along the way, we realized something deeper was breaking down in Canada.

We observed that the symptoms of The Squeeze shared a common root cause: generational unfairness. The hard truth is older Canadians benefit from past policy decisions that now harm their kids and grandkids.

We're now part of a global movement calling on governments to embrace the intergenerational solidarity and long-term planning we expect in our families. To create a Canada that works for all generations, our elected leaders must become more responsible stewards — investing and raising revenue fairly to promote wellbeing from the early years onwards. We invite all Canadians to join us in pushing for policy solutions that will restore our country's prosperity and promise for those who follow in our footsteps.

Fixing systems is hard and slow work, because they are grounded in cultural myths and values that are tough to change. But we’re in it for the long haul.