Thank you, Chair.
Marc Serré, thank you, and congratulations on motion bill that is before us here today.
The issue of an aging population is a very serious one for Canada to grapple with, and it's not just Canada. All the western nations have an aging population. It was recently announced that there are more seniors in Canada now than young people. Right now, one in six Canadians is a senior. In five and half years approximately, it will be one in five. In 12 years it will be one in four. This is a major shift in the population of Canada.
We need to get ready for that because 50% of provincial and territorial medical costs are already incurred for seniors. If that percentage changes, it means that we're very likely to have increased costs of medicine in Canada. On the other end of the equation, I believe that four and half Canadians are working to support seniors in Canada, and that will be changing to two and a half, so fewer people will be working to support seniors, but the needs will be greater.
We need to be smarter and prepare for this tidal wave, as some describe it, of grey. Canadians are living longer and are healthier, but Canadian seniors still have unique needs.
Marc, I want to thank you for raising this issue. It's one that's been raised at this committee for the last year and a half, and it's unfortunate that we didn't begin this study earlier. With hindsight we should have, but finally we're dealing with this.
I also want to thank Dr. Avery and the Canadian Medical Association for the incredible work they've done. I've been honoured to sit on a panel with Dr. Avery in my riding of Langley, at the Langley Senior Resources Society. The CMA did an incredible presentation there and met with Canadian seniors and answered questions. Also, Dr. Avery spoke to the parliamentary seniors caucus and provided great input and advice.
What I've heard, Marc, from professionals in senior health care is that it will not be possible in those 12 short years to prepare and build enough housing to house this growing population, and it's not what Canadian seniors want. They would like to age in place. Therefore, it is critically important to train health care professionals in home care, geriatrics, and palliative care if we are to be able to take care of our aging population. It's achievable and affordable. As you pointed out, it's much more affordable to have somebody age in place—but we need the staff to do that.
Taking care of a newborn baby is very heartwarming and satisfying, so it's very popular to train in pediatrics, but not so much in geriatrics. It's important even just to talk to seniors, and thus for us to ask how we can get people to volunteer to visit rest homes, to show our aging population dignity and kindness, for somebody to show them their value and visit them when they're lonely. People who have retired and have the time now to be able to do this and who will also be living in places like these pretty soon say they don't want to go near these places any sooner than they have to. They don't want to visit.
It's a dilemma. How do we engage Canadians to show love, dignity, kindness, and caring to our aging population? Also, as you pointed out, 85% of the support for seniors comes from friends and families, and in many cases at great personal cost physically and financially. How do we support them?
That said, I do acknowledge your great work. Thank you.
But first, I do hope the government will some time soon to appoint a minister for seniors, because I think its slowness in acting is because it doesn't have an advocate for seniors. There's a minister for youth, yet there are more seniors than youth. There's a minister for youth but not a minister for seniors. I hope you'll bring that message to the Prime Minister, that we need a minister for seniors, and we need to get a plan, a strategy, which we're going to deal with here.
Are you also advocating for appropriate funding in such a plan, because a plan without an engine, without an allocation of funds, training, and work with the provinces and universities.... Will you encourage the government to make sure there's appropriate funding in the next budget allocations to be able to make the plan work?