Threat or Opportunity? The Pending TRILLION Dollar Wealth Transfer

Perry Kinkaide

Published

6 years ago

11 minute read

By Perry Kinkaide, MSc, PhD, CMC – Kinkaide Enterprises Inc.

Winning a lottery can have tragic results.

Millennials and charities may not realize they are about to win a lottery, arguably the most monumental economic, political, and social event of the 21st century.

It will be the largest, broadest, deepest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history: the transfer of $trillions of wealth accumulated by babyboomers as they retire and expire. I’ve been tracking and alerting others to the associated threats and opportunities, namely: financial planners and high-wealth people, government and early-stage entrepreneurs.

Some millennials are already anticipating and pre-spending their inheritance. Most are not!

Hence, the boom underway of financial planners, new investment services, and government’s interest in how to access private capital. What has not been discussed in any depth is the impact of the wealth transfer on innovation and public services such as health and education.

The impact is expected to be profound and should be stirring a public policy discussion engaging those expecting more or less from governments.

Since the end of WWII, we’ve seen an extraordinary growth of government at all levels. Yet, debt worldwide is in the $trillions. The runup of budgets and services has contributed to an increasing sense of entitlement financed by increasing taxes on the wealthy, growing middle class, and debt financing.

Elected officials with access to “free money” have transitioned government and the public to expect “public” service for “free”. Governments have been getting elected on special interest giveaways, pandering to ever more powerful public-sector unions and professions, and blaming billionaires and corporate job creators if the public coffers are empty. The growth of public debt has been unrestrained. But why worry – the economy has been growing? Debt is under control as a portion of growing GDP and interest rates for serving debt are low. But…

A reckoning for this transfer of wealth is unavoidable

The reckoning will be triggered NOT by a crisis but by the huge transfer of $trillions by retiring and expiring babyboomers. The pending transfer should hardly be a surprise given the extraordinary economic boom and accumulation of wealth by middle-class babyboomers since their post-WWII birth. While the event can hardly be surprising, features of the event are SHOCKING and contributing to the reckoning.

Consider:

1. $Trillions are to be transferred. Recent estimates are that $68T – yes trillion US, will be transferred to millennials as babyboomers retire and expire. This number equates to $8.5T Cdn for Canada. It’s a once-in-a-career opportunity for financial planners. Some have speculated that the familiarity of millennials with technology may be good news for fintech including contemporary bitcoin solutions and cryptocurrencies

2. The transfer and its impact will hit quickly. Aging of the population is not smooth. Birthrates climbed rapidly after WWII creating a spike in their proportion of the population. The spike gives the financial industry little time to prepare for increasing usage of automated, self-help, on-line investing.

3. The transfer of wealth should increase the availability of private capital increasing economic activity: stirring innovation and job creation, exports and community enterprise. Economies most likely to gain will be those with a mature innovation ecosystem supporting survival, growth, and retention of innovation. Note. Fraud may also increase as regulators have difficulty keeping up with creative financing options.

4. Baby boomers were the source of demand for public services that continues to rise. Yet, the capacity to sustain the financing of public services through taxation is expected to drop sharply as taxpaying babyboomers retire and expire. The impact would be mitigated IF the wealth transfer were to stir taxable economic activity.

5. The size and aging of the babyboomer market sustain interest in “public” service delivery where health and education dominate government expenditures. These public services also constitute significant sources of employment.

Current levels of service cannot be sustained when babyboomers retire and expire: a) removing them as employees from the workforce, b) reducing demand for client services, and c) reducing the number of taxpayers for financing public services.

6. Babyboomers have fueled North America’s consumer economy. Markets MUST adapt quickly. Technology is more familiar and acceptable to millennials as the recipient of the wealth transfer. Institutional distrust and data accessibility are enabling the personalization of services and products in virtually every service sector.

7. Accumulation of public debt is crushing. Low-interest rates have continued to fuel the growth of public and private sector debt. ANY increase in interest rates and/or a sustained decline in tax revenues would shock public services.

I’ll pull no punches here and tell it as it is.

The debate must begin in anticipation of the looming tsunami. The good news is that the private sector is investing in technologies to accommodate and benefit from the transition and release of accumulated wealth. The bad news is that the public sector wants to sustain the status quo as it is dominated by beholden professionals with few schooled in transition management. Most claiming management status are really administrators – sustaining the profession.

What is needed to prepare?

1. Millennials need financial planning and their offspring need financial literacy. Without a plan, most will take their inheritance as an opportunity to spend, save or invest, driving a short term consumption boom and consequent hangover.

2. Banks will face increased pressure to accommodate the rise in usage of on-line investing, usage of cryptocurrencies, and other innovations in fintech.

3. Knowledge and technology seek a vacuum. Data is fueling the adoption of machine learning and artificial intelligence throughout the economy, necessary to accommodate a shrinking workforce.

4. Governments must rationalize social service standards and/or facilitate their personalization. Innovations in medicine and healthcare and the associated deinstitutionalization must be priorities.

5. As for education, it too must move beyond government as rapid increases in knowledge make lifelong learning necessary. Deinstitutionalization and innovation become essential for supporting service personalization.

6. Professions need relational skills and lifelong learning to complement their role as aides to consumer designed technologies.

7. Governments with any conscience must prepare for the crisis as an opportunity to give the client consumer status. This means personalizing public services: a) monitoring service satisfaction, b) incentivizing innovation contributing to service personalization, c) training and recruiting managers as change agents while d) maintaining public service insurance for the truly disadvantaged.

8. Collaboration among all stakeholders to increase productivity within industry.

9. Recognition that the humanities MUST guide any technology-driven transition thus calling for arts and science, humanities and technology, to work together.

If you’ve read this far, and are breathless, angry, or in denial…then consider the alternative.

Should governments sense that the public in a democracy can’t accommodate the anticipated shocks of a huge wealth transfer and free-spending, market-driven millennial, then government may step in and mitigate. How?

Mitigation may come by reducing the impact of the “free money” wealth transfer by reducing the buying power of millennials.

Do We Need a Wealth Transfer Tax?

This could be done by introducing a wealth transfer tax arguing that the new tax is dedicated to paying down the public debt accumulated while serving the former babyboomer generation. The downside of such intervention is that such measures will impede a critical improvement in productivity and the competitiveness of the affected economies.

Some governments may even declare innovation as a priority so as to preserve public services. Governments are already recognizing that technologies – such as AI, have the potential to dislocate expensive knowledge workers and address: a) increasing demand for service and it’s personalization, b) increased entrepreneurship and global enterprise, and c) a decline in the supply of social service resources. The policy of increased “innovation” typically fails in public services unless introduced with adequate resolve to confront institutionalized professional resistance and the drive/ culture to maintain the status quo.

Regardless – as no one knows the future, it is about time for Vision & Leadership, Creativity & Convergence.

It’s exciting to know that “free money” in the hands of the babyboomer’s offspring may be the very event to trigger an end to the 20th century’s assembly of “public” service supply and transition increase in the “personal” service market.

_________

Perry Kinkaide, MSc, PhD, CMC is the Founder and Past President of the Alberta Council of Technologies. He is the co-founder of several Alberta technology alliances for advancing cell therapy, cleantech, and fusion technology. He also previously served as the Managing Director of KPMG Consulting in Edmonton, Alta., and Assistant Deputy Minister with the Alberta government.

Produced with the assistance of the Government of Alberta, Alberta Media Fund

Perry Kinkaide

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Threat or Opportunity? The Pending TRILLION Dollar Wealth Transfer

Alberta

Calgary mayor should retain ‘blanket rezoning’ for sake of Calgarian families

Published on November 17, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Tegan Hill and Austin Thompson

Calgary’s new mayor, Jeromy Farkas, has promised to scrap “blanket rezoning”—a policy enacted by the city in 2024 that allows homebuilders to construct duplexes, townhomes and fourplexes in most neighbourhoods without first seeking the blessing of city hall. In other words, amid an affordability crunch, Mayor Farkas plans to eliminate a policy that made homebuilding easier and cheaper—which risks reducing housing choices and increasing housing costs for Calgarian families.

Blanket rezoning was always contentious. Debate over the policy back in spring 2024 sparked the longest public hearing in Calgary’s history, with many Calgarians airing concerns about potential impacts on local infrastructure, parking availability and park space—all important issues.

Farkas argues that blanket rezoning amounts to “ignoring the community” and that Calgarians should not be forced to choose between a “City Hall that either stops building, or stops listening.” But in reality, it’s virtually impossible to promise more community input on housing decisions and build more homes faster.

If Farkas is serious about giving residents a “real say” in shaping their neighbourhood’s future, that means empowering them to alter—or even block—housing proposals that would otherwise be allowed under blanket rezoning. Greater public consultation tends to give an outsized voice to development opponents including individuals and groups that oppose higher density and social housing projects.

Alternatively, if the mayor and council reform the process to invite more public feedback, but still ultimately approve most higher-density projects (as was the case before blanket rezoning), the consultation process would be largely symbolic.

Either way, homebuilders would face longer costlier approval processes—and pass those costs on to Calgarian renters and homebuyers.

It’s not only the number of homes that matters, but also where they’re allowed to be built. Under blanket rezoning, builders can respond directly to the preferences of Calgarians. When buyers want duplexes in established neighbourhoods or renters want townhomes closer to work, homebuilders can respond without having to ask city hall for permission.

According to Mayor Farkas, higher-density housing should instead be concentrated near transit, schools and job centres, with the aim of “reducing pressure on established neighbourhoods.” At first glance, that may sound like a sensible compromise. But it rests on the flawed assumption that politicians and planners should decide where Calgarians are allowed to live, rather than letting Calgarians make those choices for themselves. With blanket rezoning, new homes are being built in areas in response to buyer and renter demand, rather than the dictates of city hall. The mayor also seems to suggest that city hall should thwart some redevelopment in established neighbourhoods, limiting housing options in places many Calgarians want to live.

The stakes are high. Calgary is not immune to Canada’s housing crisis, though it has so far weathered it better than most other major cities. That success partly reflects municipal policies—including blanket rezoning—that make homebuilding relatively quick and inexpensive.

A motion to repeal blanket rezoning is expected to be presented to Calgary’s municipal executive committee on Nov. 17. If it passes, which is likely, the policy will be put to a vote during a council meeting on Dec. 15. As the new mayor and council weigh changes to zoning rules, they should recognize the trade-offs. Empowering “the community” may sound appealing, but it may limit the housing choices available to families in those communities. Any reforms should preserve the best elements of blanket rezoning—its consistency, predictability and responsiveness to the housing preferences of Calgarians—and avoid erecting zoning barriers that have exacerbated the housing crisis in other cities.

Tegan Hill

Director, Alberta Policy, Fraser Institute

Austin Thompson

Senior Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute

Alberta

Gondek’s exit as mayor marks a turning point for Calgary

Published on November 1, 2025

Todayville

This article supplied by Troy Media.

By Michael Taube

The mayor’s controversial term is over, but a divided conservative base may struggle to take the city in a new direction

Calgary’s mayoral election went to a recount. Independent candidate Jeromy Farkas won with 91,112 votes (26.1 per cent). Communities First candidate Sonya Sharp was a very close second with 90,496 votes (26 per cent) and controversial incumbent mayor Jyoti Gondek finished third with 71,502 votes (20.5 per cent).

Gondek’s embarrassing tenure as mayor is finally over.

Gondek’s list of political and economic failures in just a single four-year term could easily fill a few book chapters—and most likely will at some point. She declared a climate emergency on her first day as Calgary’s mayor that virtually no one in the city asked for. She supported a four per cent tax increase during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many individuals and families were struggling to make ends meet. She snubbed the Dec. 2023 menorah lighting during Hanukkah because speakers were going to voice support for Israel a mere two months after the country was attacked by the bloodthirsty terrorist organization Hamas. The
Calgary Party even accused her last month of spending over $112,000 in taxpayers’ money for an “image makeover and brand redevelopment” that could have benefited her re-election campaign.

How did Gondek get elected mayor of Calgary with 176,344 votes in 2021, which is over 45 per cent of the electorate?

“Calgary may be a historically right-of-centre city,” I wrote in a recent National Post column, “but it’s experienced some unusual voting behaviour when it comes to mayoral elections. Its last three mayors, Dave Bronconnier, Naheed Nenshi and Gondek, have all been Liberal or left-leaning. There have also been an assortment of other Liberal mayors in recent decades like Al Duerr and, before he had a political epiphany, Ralph Klein.”

In fairness, many Canadians used to support the concept of balancing their votes in federal, provincial and municipal politics. I knew of some colleagues, friends and family members, including my father, who used to vote for the federal Liberals and Ontario PCs. There were a couple who supported the federal PCs and Ontario Liberals in several instances. In the case of one of my late
grandfathers, he gave a stray vote for Brian Mulroney’s federal PCs, the NDP and even its predecessor, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation.

That’s not the case any longer. The more typical voting pattern in modern Canada is one of ideological consistency. Conservatives vote for Conservative candidates, Liberals vote for Liberal candidates, and so forth. There are some rare exceptions in municipal politics, such as the late Toronto mayor Rob Ford’s populistconservative agenda winning over a very Liberal city in 2010. It doesn’t happen very often these days, however.

I’ve always been a proponent of ideological consistency. It’s a more logical way of voting instead of throwing away one vote (so to speak) for some perceived model of political balance. There will always be people who straddle the political fence and vote for different parties and candidates during an election. That’s their right in a democratic society, but it often creates a type of ideological inconsistency that doesn’t benefit voters, parties or the political process in general.

Calgary goes against the grain in municipal politics. The city’s political dynamics are very different today due to migration, immigration and the like. Support for fiscal and social conservatism may still exist in Alberta, but the urban-rural split has become more profound and meaningful than the historic left-right divide. This makes the task of winning Calgary in elections more difficult for today’s provincial and federal Conservatives, as well as right-leaning mayoral candidates.

That’s what we witnessed during the Oct. 20 municipal election. Some Calgary Conservatives believed that Farkas was a more progressive-oriented conservative or centrist with a less fiscally conservative plan and outlook for the city. They viewed Sharp, the leader of a right-leaning municipal party founded last December, as a small “c” conservative and much closer to their ideology. Conversely, some Calgary Conservatives felt that Farkas, and not Sharp, would be a better Conservative option for mayor because he seemed less ideological in his outlook.

When you put it all together, Conservatives in what used to be one of the most right-leaning cities in a historically right-leaning province couldn’t decide who was the best political option available to replace the left-wing incumbent mayor. Time will tell if they chose wisely.

Fortunately, the razor-thin vote split didn’t save Gondek’s political hide. Maybe ideological consistency will finally win the day in Calgary municipal politics once the recount has ended and the city’s next mayor has been certified.

Michael Taube is a political commentator, Troy Media syndicated columnist and former speechwriter for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He holds a master’s degree in comparative politics from the London School of Economics, lending academic rigour to his political insights.

Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country