You’ll probably never meet a more idealistic generation than baby boomers. Or a more financially irresponsible one.

Statistics Canada says the inevitable has finally happened: Baby Boomers no longer rule the landscape like some ravenous but well-meaning tyrannosaur. Sometime before last July 1, the agency says, the number of millennials in Canada passed the number of leftovers from the postwar generation.

For the first time since 1958, when my generation became the country’s largest, Canada’s average age has declined. We’re getting older, the country is getting younger. Boomers out, millennials, gen Z, gen X, gen etc. in.

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All I can say is, given the legacy they’re getting, I hope they’re not the vindictive sort. There’s not much they can do about it, anyway. We’ve done a pretty good job of feathering our nests, while leaving behind the bills. We’ve got the houses, which keep going up in value, they’ve got the national debt, which pretty much does the same. We’ve got investments, benefits, Old Age Security. They’ve got inflation, high interest rates, a health-care system in crisis thanks, to considerable extent, to the cost of keeping us upright.

We could afford big families. In 1958 Canada’s birth rate was 27.2 per 1,000 people. Last year it was 10.1, and even at that low rate, try to find affordable daycare. For us, a first-timer’s home had three bedrooms and a back yard. For younger generations, how’s 600 square feet on the sixth floor sound? And you have to work there, too.

Honestly, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. You’ll probably never meet a more idealistic generation. Maybe we didn’t invent the social welfare system, but we grabbed it and ran. Universal health care. A national pension plan. Generous unemployment........

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