Canadian Intergenerational Equity Lock
Overview
Establish a mandatory Intergenerational Impact Statement (IIS) requirement for any federal budget projecting a structural deficit (cyclically-adjusted) above 1% of GDP. The IIS requires: (1) calculation of federal_debt_per_canadian_under_18 — how much debt each Canadian child inherits from this budget; (2) annual_debt_service_per_child — the annual interest cost per child of the accumulated debt; (3) a 30-year fiscal trajectory under the proposed policy; (4) the Finance Minister's personal signed certification; (5) mandatory 5-hour parliamentary debate with recorded vote before budget passage. No prohibition on deficit spending. Compulsory transparency with named accountability. The fiscal equivalent of an environmental impact assessment — and philosophically aligned with Cinnamon Teal.
Problem Statement
Canada's federal_debt_per_canadian_under_18 is approximately $75,000. Every child born in Canada today inherits $75,000 in federal debt before their first day of school. The annual_debt_service_per_child is ~$4,200 — money that cannot be spent on education, healthcare, or climate, it goes to bondholders. The intergenerational_impact_score of 65/100 reflects a fiscal trajectory where each generation inherits more debt than the last. Parliamentary debate on deficit spending rarely quantifies this in per-child terms because there is no requirement to do so. The IIS creates that requirement. The political genius of this proposal is that it does not prevent any government from spending — it only requires them to own the arithmetic of who pays. This is the Cinnamon Teal / Mira Mode principle applied to federal fiscal policy: decisions made today must be transparent about their consequences for people who cannot yet vote.Proposed Approach
Intergenerational Fiscal Transparency Act: Section 1: The Parliamentary Budget Officer shall, within 10 days of budget tabling, publish an Intergenerational Impact Statement calculating: federal_debt_per_canadian_under_18, annual_debt_service_per_child, 30-year structural deficit trajectory, and intergenerational_impact_score. Section 2: If the budget projects a structural deficit above the structural_deficit_trigger_threshold (1% of GDP), the Finance Minister shall sign a personal certification acknowledging the IIS findings. Section 3: Mandatory minimum 5-hour parliamentary debate on the IIS before budget vote. Section 4: IIS published in plain-language public format, not only technical appendix. Section 5: PBO to maintain a public real-time federal_debt_per_canadian_under_18 tracker updated quarterly. This is purely procedural — it costs almost nothing and prohibits nothing. It only makes the arithmetic unavoidable.Anticipated Impacts
intergenerational_impact_score improves over time as transparency creates political accountability; federal_debt_per_canadian_under_18 becomes a tracked, published, politically salient metric; annual_debt_service_per_child becomes visible in public discourse; structural_deficit_trigger_threshold set at 1.0% GDP as the IIS activation point; MODEL STRESS TEST: does making intergenerational_impact_score visible in the simulation change how students propose policies? Does knowing the per-child debt number affect proposal behavior? This is the Ducklings-specific test — the model can measure whether transparency changes deliberation outcomes.Ducklings Simulation
This proposal is active in the Ducklings causal simulation (Epoch 100). The simulation models downstream effects using a BFS cascade engine with strength-weighted, time-delayed edges capped at 3-hop depth and ±25% per-hop limits. Cascade outputs are bounded by variable saturation thresholds.
Domain: Governance | Proposal ID: 201 | Series: E-series
How to Engage
Discuss this flightplan in the Pond forum under Governance. Vote on adoption through Consensus. Adopted flightplans become projects with real-world implementation tracking.
Contact: [email protected]