Tomorrow, Canadians will go to the polls in what could be one of the most historically significant elections of our generation.

Trump aside, I’ve been thinking of the key issues most Canadians are concerned about in 2025: the cost of living, affordable housing, mental health and health care, climate change, and the economy. I’ve been very fortunate to consider these issues from a new lens, thanks to a group of young PhD international students I’ve been working with as a proctor this past month at Queen’s University.

Two of the graduate students I worked with were from Ethiopia, one doing his PhD in rehabilitation research and the other in nursing. Another was from Syria, doing his PhD in nuclear engineering. They had all done their undergraduate and Masters degrees in different countries around the world and were extremely kind, bright, perceptive, and willing to share their thoughts and experiences of their time in Canada.

They all agreed Canada is a very beautiful, safe country and they particularly loved Kingston. They appreciated the hard work ethic of Canadians and the fact that we are a law abiding country. They did not like our winters!

Some of the things that surprised them is how expensive it is to live here, especially housing. (The one fellow told me he paid $900 a month for a two bedroom apartment in Germany where he did his Masters degree in a city the same size as Kingston. His rent here is $1,700. According to Studying in Germany.org, housing prices are 47% lower than in the US). They’ve also been surprised to see the number of homeless people and people with mental health and drug problems in Canada.

This led to a discussion on the shrinking middle class, a phenomenon that seems to be happening in all countries (my new friends said it was the case in Ethiopia and Egypt too).

However, the biggest culture shock and negative they’ve encountered is the individualistic aspect of Canadian society. We talked at length about child care, since my one new friend just had a baby and the other had two children and a wife here in Canada. They said at home in Ethiopia, child care is not an issue. If you need to work or go somewhere, there is someone—a relative, neighbour, or friend who will look after the children.

That led to discussions about seniors. Older people in their country are cared for and live with their extended families, unlike here in Canada where many seniors live alone or in nursing homes, and suffer from loneliness (see my blog post from a few weeks ago, “Battling the epidemic of loneliness”).

As we were discussing all of these issues, it occurred to me that if we simply went back to having multi-generational families living together, it would solve many of the problems in our society. There would be more available and affordable housing, and the cost of living would be offset by potentially multiple incomes in one household. People would be financially better off and happier, alleviating the strain on health care systems and improving people’s mental health.

If you study the famous “blue zones” in the world where people live longer, multigenerational living is part of their cultural fabric.

Where and when did we go wrong in North America?

In 2015, one of the best selling business books was a book called Weology: When Everybody Wins When We Becomes Before Me, by Peter Aceto, CEO of Tangerine bank. It was a book on the philosophy of leadership in business, but the concept of Weology is one I think we need to start embracing as a society to address these critical issues. Clearly what we’ve been doing up until now isn’t working.

A new party, let’s call it the Weology Party, committed to implementing policy that fosters a philosophy of taking greater care of each other and multi-generational living might just be the solution. From a tax perspective, this could take the form of tax deductions or income splitting for multi-generational households, not just spouses. There are currently tax breaks for people who have eligible dependents over the age of 18 and a tax credit if you are a caregiver for a spouse or senior, but we could do more. To foster this philosophy in our communities, the government could also offer tax breaks and incentives for volunteering.

Municipalities have started to make strides to make it easier for people to live together, allowing and promoting additional dwelling units on lots.

In business, the government could introduce policy to make it attractive for new start-ups to form as employee-owned cooperatives. There is a large corporation in Spain called Mondragon Cooperation that has 70,000 employees, annual sales of 11 billion euros and is highly profitable. They are committed to putting people before profits (for instance during COVID, instead of laying off employees, they reduced salaries across the board by 5%). The ratio of pay between employees and executives is just 6:1 (in Canada, the ratio is 210:1 for our highest paid CEOs and in the States, it’s even higher). This model is one way to distribute wealth more equitably in society, within the framework of a free market economy.

My new proctor friend who was a research fellow in rehabilitation was working with a professor who was researching the impact and effectiveness of formal versus informal supports for people with disabilities. Their theory is that informal supports are far more important in helping people with disabilities live full and rewarding lives. They are still in the research and data collection phase, but my guess is the data will show that informal supports, people supporting people, will be more important.

Which brings us back to election day. Make sure you vote. You won’t see the Weology party on the ballot this election, but perhaps some day we will. In the meantime, we need to all start thinking about what small changes we can make in our lives to move Canada towards a healthier (both financially and physically), happier, and connected society.