In case anyone is interested the following topic is going to be discussed on Cross Country Checkup.

A demographic time bomb ...in 20 years Canada will have more seniors than ever. How are we handling it now? "Are seniors getting the care they need in Canada?"

This show is on CBC's Radio One, and it runs tomorrow (Sunday) from 1:05 to 3:00 PM

The following is the link to this show's web site. (E-mails which are sent to the show are posted on it)

http://www.cbc.ca/checkup/

20 years from now?????

We knew about it 20 years ago. Have done very little about it in those 20 years. Have done very little about the oil situation either after the initial "crisis" hit.

1. giving birth to more Canadians is not the answer since it will increase the world population
2. imigration should have been at a higher pace a long time ago. We have tons of land, tons of resources, and I would rather share it with people who live here and open up more of the country than people who live elsewhere.

$266,000 per unit? I hope that is not on top of the actual cost of the units for the Games. Maybe they cost $150,000 each and the property, services, shipping, assembly on site, etc. adds the other $116,000 or so.

The following is from Statistics Canada.

Canada’s elderly population is growing, a trend that began several decades ago. In 2007, the population aged 65 and older was 4.4 million and seniors made up 13% of the total population. That compares with 11% in 1987 and 8% in 1972.

Canada is one of the ‘youngest’ of the G8 countries, despite the aging of its population. Only the United States had a smaller proportion of elderly people in 2006.

Aging is expected to accelerate over the next few years, particularly when the baby boomers start turning 65. According to a medium-growth scenario, the proportion of seniors in the Canadian population will reach 27% by 2056.

The older segments of the population have the fastest growth rates. In 2007, 3% of the population was aged 80 and older. This group could account for 10% of the total population by 2056. Low fertility rates and rising life expectancy are all contributing to the steady increase in the elderly population.

http://www41.statcan.gc.ca/2008/70000/ceb70000_000-eng.htm

The following is from the British Columbia Government's web site "Conversation on Health". The statistics on this page are a couple of years old. Note how rapidly health care costs for the province go up as people age.

As baby boomers age, demand on the system increases

$3,157 – amount spent by the province annually per person on health care in B.C.

$2,364 – average spent by the province annually per person aged 45 - 64

$5,224 – average spent by the province annually per person aged 65 - 74

$9,841 – average spent by the province annually per person aged 75 - 84

$20,878 – average spent by the province annually per person aged 85 or older

14% – percentage of B.C. population over the age of 65 today

24% – percentage of B.C. population expected to be over age 65 by year 2030

http://www.bcconversationonhealth.ca/EN/health_by_numbers/

OK, we increase immigration to support us old fat cats and then, when those new folks get old we increase immigration again....Of course we will be living even longer (as the institutions refuse to let us die) so we will have to buy even more young people... I dont think i like the way this is going.

The proposed BC Housing Units are Modular units which will be constructed in the lower mainland and then shipped in a box to Chetwynd at an additional cost of $10,000. Why cant these same houses be made loaclly in Chetwynd with local labor and local building materials.

Lou and Sharon Surerus are great people that are long time residents and supporters of the District of Chetywnd. Thanks for the land Lou and sharon. You desrve the recognition Provided by calling the development Surerus Place.

They are constructed in the lower mainland because no one from Chetwynd put in a bid to build them there, ship them to Vancouver for the Olympics, and then ship them up again.

This is likely a single contractor who is building all 320 units. Also, the contractor is likely a modular home manufacturer that has a plant all set up for this type of construction process.

The obvious thing to do Charles, is cull the old growth. By doing that, we will no longer need the vast number of doctors, nurses and other health workers, the housing stock, the grocery stores, and all the other infrastructure we have built.

The result will be deflation, depression, etc. etc. $500,000 houses will go for $200,000. The legacy of the old folks to the young will take a major drop.

Of course, even if the old folks continue to be catered to, the natural death rate will eventually exceed the natural birth rate and the population will begin to shrink for a few decades. Without bringing in guest workers or imigrants, it will end up in the same situation.

As it says, Canada and the USA are the youngest of the G8. Gusess waht that means? You can look at other countries who have already gone through this.

You said that In 2007, the population aged 65 and older was 4.4 million and seniors made up 13% of the total population.

Here are some stats for % over 65 + fertility rate

Germany - 20.3% -- 1.41 children/woman
Sweden - 18.8% ----- 1.67
Austria - 18% ----- 1.39
Belgium - 17.6% ---- 1.65
Finland - 16.8% ----- 1.73
France 16.4% ----- 1.98
Switzerlans - 16.3% ---- 1.45
UK - 16.2% --- 1.66
Norway - 15.2% ---- 1.78
Netherlands - 14.9% ---- 1.66

Canada - 15.2% --- 1.58
USA - 12.8% ---- 2.05
Mexico - 6.2% ---- 2.34

The figures are all 2009 estimates from the CIA world facts book which is is single source and uses the same methodology for all countries.

So, countries with the ager distribution of Mexico spend their money on taking care of the youth in the first 20 or so years. That means fewer people in the workforce so that children can be raised or less efficient workforce because they have to pay for daycare services, plus cost of education of something like $7,000 per year per child which is similar to health cost for age 65 to 80 or so. Then comes Univerity ... $15,000 per year ..... and these people are not productive, they have no income from retirement to feed themselves, etc. etc.

Want to promote increased family size. The results in the workforce will not be seen for 20+ years with inexperienced people coming on board and the cost to geeting from birth to there is VERY expensive.

Germany has the oldest number of senior in the group. Are they in the dumps? What have they and others done to survive? Immigrants, guest workers, increased productivity. They have more vactions than we do, they have a superior social network than we do and, strangely enought, they have lower percentage than we do of people in the workforce.

Learn, learn, learn. It could be another version of smart growth. There is no single solution. The solutions are many and they are integrated and they include a different way of looking at how we treat ourselves.

look at the growth rates of countries.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2002rank.html?countryName=Mexico&countryCode=MX®ionCode=na#MX

There are no "western" countries in the first 100.

Negative growth countries include:

Italy
Poland
Croatia
Germany
Czech
Slovenia
Japan
Russia

That is an image of the world in 2050 as far as nations goes. Plenty of people to go around. Plenty who want to come to places that need ready made workers. Many even come with very high levels of education.

Going for a drive tonight and seeing young people on every street corner we counted sixteen on George St. then driveing down Queensway and 20th and seeing Hookers on the street corners , also the big blue Northern Health Van , talking to one of the native Hookers , what is that all about , are we as tax payers funding this?? and across the street a little boy was playing in his frount yard. Nothern Health get your needle van out of our area you are just feeding the fire. Chetywnd is looking like a good place to retire.

How can any country like Canada maintain its birth rate at a replacement level if both parents are forced into the workforce just to try to get enough income to live at somewhere near the 'standard of living' society now often dictates they live at?

When I was growing up in the 50's and early 60's, the two income family was the exception rather than the rule. Most people in the workforce had two days a week off, often the same two their kids were off school, or at least one of those same days.

Most stores closed two days a week, and were open generally not longer than eight hours a day, possibly extending those hours to nine o'clock in the evening on a Friday. And people lived a lot better life then than most do now. They had 'leisure' time, and used it.

Now we're being told that we don't work "hard enough" or long enough, or our incomes are "too high". That we're spoiled and wasteful, and that unless we pay things like 'carbon taxes' and 'environmental levies', and save over a million dollars in RRSPs by the time we reach 65, we'll have to slug it out in the workforce til we drop.

All this in the face of a western world that is literally awash in a glut of unsold and unsaleable products. And would be even more so if we had the "full employment" that our politicians all seem to see as the ultimate nirvanah.

Does anyone here truly believe that we could not adequately feed and clothe and house and medicate and amuse our senior citizens, every last growing one of them, without all the rest of us actually going short of any of our material needs and desires? We could more than do so.

They could all enjoy a standard of living in excess of what many of them are now forced to endure. And so could all the rest of us.

"Physically" we live in a land of plenty, and given free choice the overwhelming majority would use that 'plenty' wisely ~ without a government pretending it has to coerece us into doing so.

The "poverty" that exists in this country is purely a "financial" construct. The "figures" with those "$"s signs in front of them do not match the "facts" they are supposed to properly reflect.

Correct that, and we can get on track to properly caring for our seniors, our kids, and ourselves. Mistake it for a never ending need for exponential "growth" and we'll have a world that truly will exhaust the "plenty", totally wastefully in rapidly increasing increments, and our financial poverty will indeed be a real one.

Socredible's views on this are so credible!!

The problem, of course, is how does one turn things around? Whose fault is it that our society ended up this way? Is it anyone's fault? It's the "American" way of life. Or is it? "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Is it that in the pursuit of happiness, primarily through material goods, that we may be jeapardizing the "life" part, or even the "libery" part? Are we really "free" to do as we please, or are we on a perpetual treadmill never to get to the end of it until our life is gone?

If we feel there is something wrong with the system, how do we fix it or even just improve it? It is not an overnight fix, to be sure.

Is this going to be one of those promotion things like "participaction"? Will people think it is big brother at work again?

For me, I just know intuitively that this is not the ideal way to live on this earth and especially not in this country of riches and people willing to work hard.