Paul Kershaw is a tenured professor at the University of BC, public speaker, regular media contributor and founder of Generation Squeeze — Canada’s leading organization fighting for generational fairness. Generation Squeeze is a small but mighty force in the world of politics, powered by cutting-edge research and the voices of younger Canadians as well as those who love them. Kershaw is one of Canada’s leading thinkers about generational equity. He received the award for Academic of the Year in 2016 from the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC. Twice, the Canadian Political Science Association has honoured Kershaw with national prizes for his gender and politics research. He and his Gen Squeeze colleagues received the award for B.C.’s Affordable Housing Champion in 2017 from the provincial Housing Central coalition, while the Government of Canada awarded Kershaw its inaugural prize for excellence in moving “Knowledge to Action” on housing in 2018.

Kershaw prides himself on being a changemaker, and his work has contributed directly to historic investments in $10-a-day child care by B.C. and federal governments, the first-ever tax on empty homes in North America, preventing limitless rent increases in Ontario, changes to municipal zoning, approval of dozens of new rental housing developments facing NIMBYism, a shift in B.C. to reduce income taxes by taxing unhealthy home prices more, and the first-ever reporting of age trends in federal government spending. Kershaw also successfully led the Intergenerational Climate Coalition to intervene in Canadian courts to defend the constitutionality of pricing pollution on the grounds it is needed to promote population health and intergenerational equity. Kershaw is a policy professor in the UBC School of Population and Public Health and director of the UBC Masterès of Public Health program.