I'll take a moment to respond to that and use this as an example of how collaboration has happened. Our local elder abuse network in London, Ontario, played a significant role in moving London forward, about six or seven years ago, to become an age-friendly city.
That process, and continued process, is an example of where multiple individuals, older adults themselves, community members, neighbourhoods, agencies, health care agencies and social service agencies came together and have really worked on a variety of pillars, including housing, transportation, health, social services, income, and so on, in trying to find ways of agencies working more closely together, responding collectively and giving the lead to older adults to let us know in a community what their needs are. Certainly we still have a long way to go, but that is an example of how collaborative work can occur.
As an example, during COVID, we were able to get one of our agencies, the Canadian Mental Health Association, to set up a friendly support line to call out to older adults who were indicating that they were feeling increasingly isolated and have friendly calling connecting to them over the telephone, which is at least a piece of technology that the vast majority of older adults do have and are able to operate. That's an example where community collaboration, agency networking and working together can work.
The challenge is that all of that has been done voluntarily and really without any dollars connected to it at all. That shows the commitment of communities across the country that wish to respond to this. Realistically, volunteer work and that sort of networking can only go so far before more formal interventive resources and the capacity to assess and review elder abuse situations need to be in place.