That's a big topic, but an important one.
We saw right from the very beginning of the pandemic that ageism was seeping in, even by people who weren't likely intending to be ageist. We heard messages such as, “Oh, it's not that serious because it only affects older people.” There, we see the seeping in right away at the beginning, that it really isn't that concerning because it's not affecting everyone in society.
Implicitly, although we might not even realize it, even gerontologists can see it surfacing on occasions, that we have this differential thinking about people by their age. This is something that is pervasive in society, so it's not something that's going to be easily overcome.
I think you're correct in your assertion that in the fact that long-term care did not do well, there is certainly an aspect of ageism and ableism that existed, which was why they were kind of left on their own to try to fend for themselves.
One, we have to have an awareness campaign, to begin with, that this even is an issue, because most people in society realize that there are many forms of discrimination and they realize the harms from those forms of discrimination, but they do not understand [Technical difficulty—Editor] as a society. It also has implications for work. We've seen that, in many instances, older people might have lost jobs through the pandemic, and older people will likely have a harder time being hired again because ageism is also pervasive in hiring, training, and even in firing employees.
It is a huge issue for our society and I think it would be worthwhile for Canada, as a country, to join the WHO in combatting ageism. I understand that the National Seniors Council has this as one of its target areas, but I don't think we can underestimate how important this is. I think it also affects our students at the university and the topics they choose to study, because it is not seen as necessarily a good role to be in, in terms of looking after older people. Across the board, we have to try to overcome this.