Human Resources committee  Thank you for the invitation to speak today. I am the director of the Centre on Aging at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. Our centre has existed since 1982 and is the focal point for research and knowledge mobilization on aging in Manitoba. The first issue I would like t

Human Resources committee  I would say that the situation is quite similar in Manitoba to what has been described in Ontario. This issue of part-time work, not being paid well, is clearly not going to entice individuals to come to these positions, particularly not after everything we've seen during the p

Human Resources committee  Just to add to what's been said about the lack of gerontology or geriatric education, I think you will see that this exists in other professions as well, even though they might end up serving primarily an older audience. Even pharmacy programs and rehab programs, many programs ou

Human Resources committee  Well, the federal government is overseeing the age-friendly communities initiative across the country, although, of course, there's a large provincial jurisdiction over many of the services, which includes transportation. I'm not exactly sure what the role of the federal governme

Human Resources committee  More funding is absolutely required across the board, although I'm not going to get into which jurisdiction should be providing those funds. We're all, as individuals, taxpayers and the money has to come from somewhere, but we'll need to see more funding in the system, in additio

Human Resources committee  I'm sorry. Was that directed to me?

Human Resources committee  Your question was around whether this whole situation has created more problems in terms of anxiety and mental health. Yes, certainly. I wouldn't say that's across the board. I think it's a bit of a stereotype to think that all older people have fared poorly during the pandemic

Human Resources committee  There are people on the low-income scale who certainly need more support. Any time programs are being designed for older people, I think it would make a lot of sense for those programs to be targeted to those who are in great need. Again, there's a lot of heterogeneity in the ol

Human Resources committee  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

Human Resources committee  I don't have a lot of specific data that I can cite, but certainly we've seen in Winnipeg where there are lots of individuals who have food insecurity issues. Right now, in this third wave that we're experiencing, they're having to be provided with emergency kits, whereas, as I s

Human Resources committee  Yes, I do, and—

Human Resources committee  In a lot of aspects of the data, at least that we're receiving here in Manitoba, which I assume is filtering through federally, we might have race-based data, and we might have age-based data, but we don't have a lot of the more fine-tuned data across all individuals. Hopefully,

Human Resources committee  I can answer that if you'd like. Yes, I absolutely think that. In part, generationally, we see the age cohorts changing. Their lifestyles have been very different from that perspective, I think, even pre-pandemic, yes, in terms of even what families will encourage older people t

Human Resources committee  Oh my goodness, in terms of surgeries or therapies, there's a whole host. If we think from a primary prevention point of view, that was what I was kind of trying to get at in my original statement around the physical therapies and exercise programming. I come from that backgrou

Human Resources committee  In terms of one specific medical condition, no. I think it goes across all the cardiovascular...diabetes, cancer and so on. I would imagine there are issues with all of them.