Over the last ten years, about $1 trillion has transferred from Canadian baby boomers to their Gen X and Millennial heirs. In the coming years, we will see at least another $3 trillion transferred in personal and business assets as the trend continues and business owners retire. This is what economists and journalists have been calling the great transfer of wealth—the largest intergenerational handover of money and assets in history. It’s frequently likened to a tsunami (the “Silver tsunami,” the “trillion-dollar tsunami,” or simply “the Great Tsunami”), leading one to conclude that it is a transformational event — a once-in-a-century opportunity to level the metaphorical economic landscape and reshape society.
But here’s the truth: this “transfer” isn’t transforming much at all.
What’s actually happening is the orderly passage of wealth from one generation of affluent Canadians to the next. It’s not a redistribution of wealth across class lines, but rather a preservation of privilege within them. This is how generational wealth works—and it always has.
What is new is the sheer magnitude of the wealth involved. The current generation of older Canadians accumulated unprecedented levels of cash and capital assets, largely as beneficiaries of neoliberal economic policies, deregulation, and globalization—forces that systematically widened the gap between the rich and the poor.
When women inherit, what really changes?
Some coverage of the wealth transfer celebrates the idea that women are about to control more wealth than ever before. But this trend is demographic, not revolutionary.
As wealthy men pass away, their estates are often transferred to their spouses—women who statistically outlive men by four to six years. During that time, many women will have temporary control over large sums of money, but this doesn’t represent systemic change. It simply postpones the transfer of wealth to younger generations.
In short order, that wealth will be distributed among children and grandchildren, often maintaining the same patterns of privilege that existed before. Women are often surprised by an inheritance, suggesting that they were not involved in estate planning or financial decision-making during their family member’s lifetime.
Even if inheritances are divided equitably among heirs of all genders, this is still equity within the wealthy class—not across society.
Inherited wealth and the tax advantage that keeps inequality growing
As trillions of dollars in cash, real estate, and investments change hands through inheritance, that concentration of wealth will not only persist—it will likely deepen.
One per cent of Canadians now control roughly a quarter of the country’s total wealth. Meanwhile, most Canadians are struggling with soaring housing and food prices, stagnant wages, and shrinking public services. The wealth transfer isn’t bridging those divides; it’s hardening them.
Consider how the tax system rewards those already well-off.
When someone dies, Canadian tax law treats their assets as if they were sold and immediately repurchased by their estate at fair market value—a “deemed disposition” that typically triggers capital gains taxes. Capital gains are taxed differently from employment income. While you pay tax on 100 per cent of your earnings from employment, only 50 per cent of a capital gain is taxable.
Imagine inheriting your parents’ investment portfolio. If your parents bought $260,000 worth of shares in 1990 and they’re now worth $1.26 million, that’s an increase in value of $1 million! The $1 million is treated as a capital gain, with only 50 per cent of the gain included in taxable income. Only $500,000 would be included in the estate’s final income tax return. The other $500,000 will pass along to you tax-free.
Inheriting some types of real estate can be even more advantageous. Imagine you inherit your parents’ home. They purchased it in 1990 for $260,000. Today, it’s worth $1.26 million. That’s a $1 million capital gain. But thanks to the principal residence exemption, the $1 million increase in real estate value is 100 per cent tax-free. Not a single dollar of that gain contributes to public revenue.
Home ownership is rewarded by our tax and financial system, while remaining out of reach for many Canadians. There is no analogous tax credit or policy that benefits renters, even though home ownership is declining and a third of Canadians are renters. The principal residence exemption (PRE) has been in place since capital gains taxes were first introduced in 1972. The purpose is to help Canadians build wealth by supporting home ownership (presumably using the gains to move up the property ladder or to leverage home equity).
Policies like the PRE protect and perpetuate wealth among those who already have it, while limiting the government’s ability to invest in public systems that benefit everyone—healthcare, childcare, affordable housing, and education among them.
When the Trudeau government proposed increasing the capital gains inclusion rate by 16.7 per cent, it could have generated meaningful revenue and nudged the tax system toward greater fairness—especially for Canadians who aren’t in line for a windfall inheritance. But the backlash was immediate. The proposal was quietly dropped when Mark Carney became prime minister in early 2025, another sign of how resistant Canada’s political class remains to even modest redistribution.
The result is predictable: a wealth transfer that reinforces the existing hierarchy rather than redistributing opportunity.
The myth of “Women’s buying power”
Another narrative often mistaken for progress is the rise of women’s “buying power.”
But what does that really mean? Economically, purchasing power refers to actual control over money and resources. In most media discussions, though, it simply refers to women’s influence over spending decisions.
Yes, women make the majority of household purchasing decisions, from groceries to clothing to appliances. But this has always been true—because women have long shouldered the majority of unpaid domestic responsibilities.
Even when women influence big-ticket purchases like cars or homes, that doesn’t necessarily signal greater economic equity. It reflects responsibility, not ownership.
Increased buying power is more likely a side effect of women’s growing participation in the paid workforce as employees, contractors, and small business owners. While this represents progress, two persistent barriers continue to undermine real equity:
Together, these conditions ensure that women are still doing too much work for too little pay—or no pay at all. That is not economic equity.
What real economic transformation would look like
If we truly want to advance gender and economic equity in Canada, four policy shifts would create genuine systemic change:
1. Pay equity
We must value a unit of women’s labour as equal to that of men. Pay equity isn’t just about fairness—it’s about unleashing economic potential and creating a more just society. Pay equity is a fundamental building block to gender equity.
The Pay Equity Act was passed in 2018 and came into force in 2021. This Act requires pay equity for federally regulated workplaces with more than ten employees. The Act covers the Canadian Public Service, which is Canada’s largest employer. Employers in the private sector are subject to provincial pay equity legislation, which varies across provinces and territories.
2. Universal parental financial support
It’s time to decouple maternity and parental benefits from Employment Insurance. Childcare and postnatal care are work, not unemployment. And individuals other than those employed in waged work have babies every day: students, the self-employed, business owners, and the unemployed.
Financial benefits should be distributed on a per-child basis and calculated based on the actual costs of supporting a baby, a caregiver, and a stable home environment. Think of this as public investment in a future taxpayer.
3. Support for the self-employed
Ten per cent of the labour force is self-employed. That includes more than one million women in Canada, who, by choice, by necessity, or by the nature of their work, are self-employed. Yet government policies and programs overwhelmingly cater to employers and employees.
Developing robust supports for self-employed workers would not only improve economic outcomes for women but also strengthen the broader economy.
4. Tax reform
Tax reform is a powerful tool to fund public services while decreasing the wealth gap. An increase in the capital gains inclusion rate, paired with an annual and indexed lifetime exemption threshold, will allow for greater tax fairness. Alternatively, the capital gains inclusion rate could be applied on a sliding scale, depending on the total gain amount. This would result in higher inclusion rates for higher value gains. Regardless of the selected policy, tax reforms must be communicated to the public in a straightforward manner, leaving as little room as possible for grandstanding and misinformation.
A call to re-imagine wealth
The transfer of wealth now underway could have been a turning point for Canada—a moment to reimagine the flow of money, opportunity, and power in our society. Instead, without deliberate intervention, it risks reinforcing the same inequities that created the wealth gap in the first place.
Economic transformation doesn’t happen automatically. It happens through policy, accountability, and the courage to redefine what prosperity means and who it serves.If we want the next generation’s Canada to be more equitable than the last, we can’t rely on inheritance—or purchasing power—to do the work. We have to build systems that value every kind of labour, support every kind of worker, and ensure that prosperity truly transfers—not just between generations, but across society.
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