The Great Wealth Transfer is coming – just not for everyone

Vanessa Martin is stuck in the middle. With two young children to feed and clothe, the 42-year-old finance manager in Cambridge, Ont., is sending money home to Brazil to support her ailing parents. With only a government pension to draw from and in need of health insurance, her parents lean on her and her brother for help. Martin also helps pay for her mother’s private nursing home – money she wishes she could put toward her children’s education or a down payment on a house. “They didn’t plan for their retirement at all,” she tells me.

That’s why she is one of many Canadian millennials expecting zero from the Great Wealth Transfer – the more than $1 trillion estimated to pass from baby boomers to their heirs by the end of the decade, either through living gifts or inheritances. According to an Ipsos survey, Canadian boomers who plan to leave everything to their children expect to pass down an average inheritance of about $960,000. For the inheritors, this can be like hitting the jackpot: suddenly you have money to buy a new home, pay off the mortgage, or quit your day job to join the circus. For the rest, there’s no life-changing lottery ticket.

Picking up the tab for Mom and Dad has been stressful for Martin. It’s meant fewer extracurricular activities for her kids. It’s also led to tough conversations with her Canadian-born husband who doesn’t subscribe to the same cultural norms around familial obligations. “It makes us feel like we’re the only ones [in this situation],” she says.

But Martin isn’t alone. As a first-generation immigrant in the sandwich generation, I also understand the expectation to financially support our parents in their golden years. They gave up everything to give us a good life, the reasoning goes, so it’s only fair we give back.

This logic may be going mainstream. More than half of Canadians expect children to support their parents in retirement, while 37% are responsible for the financial and emotional well-being of aging parents or in-laws, according to a 2025 BMO survey.

The cost of filial piety

Millions of Canadians are counting on their children. But elder care can cost a pretty penny: if your parent needs out-of-home care, for example, it can set them (or you) back anywhere from $1,600 to upwards of $6,000 a month.

According to Adam Chapman, the cost of care isn’t always strictly monetary. The financial planner and founder of YESmoney usually sees children also provide emotional support or physical labour – such as mowing the lawn – when their parents’ health declines. For the sandwich generation, the real cost can be time. “That’s usually what weighs people down,” he says.

It’s a guilt-ridden solution, but Chapman recommends setting boundaries. Tell your parents what you can and cannot do, he says. If they know you have limited funds or can’t be on call 24-7, they will adjust. Next time the faucet leaks, maybe they ask a neighbour for help.

While my mother showers my kids with presents, cooks for me regularly, and is an eager (and free) babysitter, there’s likely no grand transfer of riches. She may not be gifting me a million dollars to buy my four-bedroom dream home in Toronto, but she still helps me more than I help her.

These are hard conversations. I should know. I’ve been trying to suss out my 70-year-old mother’s long-term retirement plan to no avail. Every time I ask, I get shooed away. “It’s in God’s hands,” she says, the go-to response of South Asian mothers worldwide. As if that’s a foolproof plan.

While my mother showers my kids with presents, cooks for me regularly, and is an eager (and free) babysitter, there’s likely no grand transfer of riches. She may not be gifting me a million dollars to buy my four-bedroom dream home in Toronto, but she still helps me more than I help her.

I know that can change. As someone who lives alone, my mother might need help as she gets older, and I want to be prepared. But with limited knowledge of her assets, I don’t know where to start.

Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C

That’s why you need a plan, says Bill McBay, a financial advisor at Sun Life. As a third party, advisors can have those uncomfortable conversations – about estates, executors and inheritance – with aging parents. They can model out a plan that asks the ‘what ifs,’ so you have flexibility if your parents need support. And if they don’t, it might mean you can retire early. “If you’re in the thick of it, your options are less,” he says. “If you’re planning for it and it never happens, it could really help out your long-term plan.”

Kathryn Smith* is in the thick of it – and she never saw it coming. Smith was doing well as the head of a not-for-profit in Ottawa, but after caring for her father during the COVID-19 pandemic, things fell apart.

Her caregiving responsibilities hurt her career, leaving her with less disposable income. Today, the 47-year-old is pungently sandwiched (her description) between her 90-year-old father with Alzheimer’s and her 26-year-old schizophrenic son. Both rely on her to varying degrees for financial and emotional support. She’s also helping her father fix up his bungalow, which has fallen into disrepair. And to top it off, her savings are depleted and she can’t fathom contributing to a retirement plan, leaving her in a financially precarious position. “It was unimaginable to me that I would end up in this situation,” she says.

McBay feels for people in Smith’s situation. It might mean they retire later than planned, he says. Or they might change their focus from contributions and tax savings to risk management and growth opportunities in their investments. “It’s one of those Jesus-take-the-wheel moments where you’re going to do whatever it is … [because] that’s your parent.”

When I ask Smith what she thinks about the Great Wealth Transfer, she’s pragmatic. “Life is unfair,” she says. “Society is unfair.”

A Canadian nightmare

This unfairness can hurt Canadian society. Ken Coates, a historian and retired professor, is worried this wealth transfer will widen the gap between the haves and have-nots. It shows up most notably in housing, with 40% of homeowners turning to the Bank of Mom and Dad to enter the real estate market.

“Poverty becomes multi-generational very quickly,” says Coates. “If your parents are poor and can’t get a leg up, you’re going to be poor.”

There’s also a mental disconnect. Coates knows of millennials who inherited $5-million homes in Vancouver. People who own homes in big cities are living the dream, but disengaged from the harsh reality facing other Canadians, he tells me. At the same time, those struggling to make ends meet are “checking out of society.” They’re not participating in politics or the community, and the ambitious ones are leaving the country. “There’s a Canadian nightmare hanging just under the surface,” Coates says.

Playing the long game

These are big-picture problems that I’ll let people smarter than me solve. But Coates has advice for families: talk about money with your kids and teach them to save early. People must also be willing to leave the big city. Job opportunities for tradespeople and professionals are plentiful in smaller cities out west and up north, he tells me.

“Go to Timmins. Go to Thunder Bay. Be really brave. Go to Saskatoon, which is one of the greatest cities in the country. People can do things, but they have to think with a long view.”

The odds might be stacked against us, but we can make our own luck. Unlike her parents, Martin is planning for her retirement because she doesn’t want history to repeat itself. Smith will inherit her father’s bungalow – an asset she has mixed feelings about. She has sunk her own money into keeping the place afloat, but she hopes to pass it on to her son one day. As for me, I’m looking at real estate listings in Saskatoon. There’s a beautiful four-bedroom home with a two-car garage and a big backyard. And I won’t need my parents’ money to buy it.