Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
I find your topics of expertise diverse and very interesting. I want to thank each of you for trying to improve life for our aging population by offering a better quality of life, and for showing dignity for those who need some help. Thank you for your work.
Many of you have provided recommendations. You may have more recommendations to give. If you would, please forward them to the committee, in short order, in the form of a written brief, so that they can be translated. Very shortly, we'll be working on a report to Parliament, and your recommendations will be considered.
You are diverse in the way you're assisting seniors across the country and in communities. My number one question is how we bring all this expertise in to meet the needs of seniors.
In Canada, the number of seniors is one in six, but in my riding of Langley, it's probably closer to one in five, or maybe one in four and a half. Because of the climate and topography, it's a nice place to retire, so there's a large senior population, just as there is in Richmond, as my colleague to my left here, Alice can attest.
How do we bring all the resources for seniors together so that we can meet the need? The common theme is also that we're not ready and that we need to have a national seniors strategy. As we've heard, the wait times in Grande Prairie are exceptionally long and they are getting longer. I think there's a problem with wait times right across the country, so I don't think it's the blame of any one government. We're not functioning the way we need to. We need to rethink how we provide services to seniors. How do we bring it together so we don't have silos but a real, functioning machine to provide for that need?
I'm going to start off with Ms. Hauptman in Langley.
You had mentioned that there are about 800 people living around Langley Lodge. Those are seniors living by themselves. I think you used two figures, 1,500 and 800. Is aging in place the silver bullet to be able to help seniors?