Call for national approach in Canada to ‘silver tsunami’

Dustin Block
Aging Together
Published in
1 min readJan 18, 2015

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The Globe and Mail published a powerful editorial on January 16, 2015 calling for political and health leaders in Canada to form a national strategy to address the nation’s aging population and “stagnant” health care system.

The editorial claims Canada is ignoring the issue on a national scale, instead passing it off to provinces or local officials. The result is an uncoordinated, expensive system struggling to meet people’s needs.

By 2030, one-quarter of all of us will be over 65 — close to eight million people. And yet, at a time when our health-care system needs to be girding itself for a new reality, it is in fact falling behind other developed countries in terms of quality, effectiveness and efficiency.

The editorial calls on all of Canada’s political parties to make aging issues a priority in future elections, suggesting it’s more important than safety or taxes in people’s lives.

All the parties should get on board with this, without qualification. When the election campaign starts in earnest, the politicians will gab on about lower taxes and safer streets. The CMA has done us all a favour by identifying an issue that is far more pressing but woefully underappreciated in Ottawa. The tsunami is coming. We can be ready, or we can get washed away.

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Dustin Block
Aging Together

Community News Director for @MLiveDetroit | Married to @ClareAPfeiffer | Fan of @GLCRoasting