THE JACKPOT GENERATION

Canada is in the midst of the greatest wealth transfer of all time, as some $1 trillion passes from boomers to their millennial kids. How an inheritance-based economy will transform the country.

- Katrina Onstad

What if you woke up one day to discover that millions of people had suddenly won the lottery? Perhaps you'd be happy for these lucky recipients. More likely, you, with your ever-shrinking piece of the pie, would be fuming, even furious, at the injustice of it all. Then again, maybe you'd be one of the winners, quietly exhaling in relief. Finally. Some good news.

A lottery win happened yesterday, and it'll happen tomorrow, too. Between now and 2026, an estimated $1 trillion will move from Canadian baby boomers to their heirs, mostly millennials. As older Canadians live longer, even more money will stream down in the coming decades. An Ipsos sur vey found that among Canadian boomers who are planning to leave 100 per cent of their estates to their children, the average inheritance will be about $940,000.

For most people, this is life-changing wealth, enough to pay off the mortgage, to move the kids from public school to private school, to shift their status from renter to homeowner. Some heirs will receive much more-the kind of Porsche-and-penthouse money that they could never earn in their jobs as teachers, accountants, marketing managers. All of this signals an unprecedented economic shift: the greatest transfer of generational wealth in Canadian history, emerging in the form of mass good fortune bestowed upon the demographically lucky. When all the payouts have been made, Canada could look starkly different.