Government budgets shape how we live – and how we feel. If you want to see the consequences of government policy choices, look at how Canadians now rate their life satisfaction.
For nearly two decades, the World Happiness Report has asked people around the globe to evaluate their happiness on a scale from zero to ten. The latest evidence for Canada is frightening.
Research by three Canadian academics shows that the average life satisfaction of younger Canadians – those under 30 – has fallen from 7.6 in the late 2000s to 6.4 in recent years. This steep decline, they report, “places Canada just above Venezuela, Lebanon and Afghanistan on the list of countries experiencing the greatest fall.”
And the news is getting worse. This past month, the World Happiness Report released new data for people under age 25. Canada now ranks 72st globally – below the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Canada ranks 25th out of 147 countries in the 2026 World Happiness Report
All the while, baby boomers remain relatively happy. The latest international data available for those aged 60 and over, from 2024, show Canadians in this group rank eighth out of 143 countries – 50 places higher than those under 30. A gap that large should be setting off alarm bells in every legislature in the country.
Many of the underlying factors are well understood. Younger Canadians are squeezed between lower earnings and higher housing costs. Millennials and Gen Z study longer and take on more student debt, only to fall behind where Gen X, and especially boomers, stood at the same age.
Governments have been slow to respond: the NDP in B.C. and Manitoba, Conservatives in Alberta and Ontario, Liberals in New Brunswick and Ottawa. Across party lines, their shared complacency fuels misery and drains joy from younger Canadians.
Federally, Old Age Security is by far the largest federal spending program, providing $18,000 annually to retired couples, including many with six-figure incomes. By contrast, Ottawa considers reducing the Canada Student Grant from $4,200 to $3,000 and cutting housing spending by half if the National Housing Strategy is not renewed.
Provincially, medical care now dominates budget growth, driven by predictable increases in use by an aging population. As a result, spending on child care, K-12 education, postsecondary, housing, youth employment and climate action is crowded out, while deficits grow.
We should be protecting people in retirement and ensuring access to care in old age. I’m proud of these Canadian achievements.
But what’s missing is reciprocity.
Young Money: Across the political spectrum, ageist provincial budgets fail the young
Governments have not matched the rise in spending on boomers with new revenue from that generation, which leaves too little to invest in affordable housing, education, training and family supports for their offspring.
This is what systemic ageism against younger Canadians looks like in practice: a pattern of decisions at the cabinet table that no grandparent would make around their family table. Most older Canadians would not choose a future in which their own happiness comes at the expense of their children and grandchildren.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Within Canada, there is a clear contrast. World Happiness Report authors show that the drop in life satisfaction among young Quebeckers is roughly half that of their peers in the rest of Canada. Policy helps explain why.
Affordable child care reduces pressure on young families. Lower tuition limits early-life debt. More generous parental leave supports family stability and social connection. These policies, together with housing prices lower than in B.C. and Ontario, buffer younger Quebeckers from economic pressure eroding well-being elsewhere.
Young Money: Building more homes alone won’t fix affordability. Here’s what else is needed
Quebec’s choices can be extended across Canada. We can modernize retirement income programs so support is better targeted. We can raise tax revenue from financially secure boomers to pay for the medical care we always knew their aging would require. Both changes would provide more to invest in homes younger Canadians can afford, educations that don’t bury them in debt, and family incomes that reward their effort.
This is not a Robin Hood proposal – taking from one generation to give to another. Governments have already played the Sheriff of Nottingham, shifting resources from millennials and Gen Z to boomers. Today’s typical 35-year-old pays 20 to 40 per cent more in income taxes to fund healthy retirements than boomers did at the same age.
It’s about restoring fiscal balance so every generation can thrive.
If we fail, the legacy we leave will be a country where governments protected the happiness of boomers while dimming the futures of their children and grandchildren.
Dr. Paul Kershaw is a policy professor at UBC and founder of Generation Squeeze, Canada’s leading voice for generational fairness. You can follow Gen Squeeze on X, Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram, as well as subscribe to Paul’s Hard Truths podcast.
