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On October 1st, as we celebrate National Seniors Day and the International Day of Older Persons, we honour the invaluable contributions of older adults who have shaped our communities. At the same time, National Seniors Day is also a time to recognize the significant challenges many older adults face.
To meet these growing challenges, the NIA adopted a new strategic plan in 2024 with a bold vision: a Canada where older adults feel valued, included, supported, and better prepared to age with confidence.
The community-based seniors' sector plays a crucial role in improving the quality of life for older adults across British Columbia. In August 2024, the NIA and United Way BC connected with partners from Nanaimo to Victoria to meet and learn from organizations that provide critical programs and services to older adults.
The federal government must take these trends into consideration when developing the budgetary priorities for 2025. In our recent submission to the Standing Committee on Finance (FINA) pre-budget consultations, we urged federal policymakers to tackle key issues affecting older adults in Canada through five key recommendations
On April 16, the Government of Canada tabled its 2024-2025 budget. Under the theme of “fairness for every generation,” Budget 2024 promises, “a fair chance to build a good middle class life—to do as well as your parents, or better—that’s the promise of Canada. For too many, especially for younger Canadians, that promise is at risk.”
This month Madame Clarkson celebrated her 85th birthday. We were delighted to have a conversation with the Honourary Chair of the National Institute on Ageing’s Advisory Board and discuss what this particular milestone means to her.
The holidays can bring up a range of emotions for many of us and especially older persons during the holiday season. Whether it is reminiscing about a partner, relative or friend who passed, or being away from children or loved ones, the holidays can increase feelings of loneliness especially among older adults.
Earlier this month, the National Institute on Ageing (NIA) launched a new report to better understand the factors driving the growing epidemic of social isolation and loneliness among older Canadians. The NIA shares five ways to increase social interaction and make older adults you know feel more appreciated and included this holiday season and beyond.
The Alberta government has released a consultant’s report that includes a $334 billion estimate of the asset transfer from the CPP fund to a new fund to be established for a standalone Alberta pension plan.
There are three distinct issues with this number. First, the provisions in the CPP Act concerning the asset transfer are not particularly clear. Second, the number is calculated using data by province of residence whereas CPP operates on the province of employment. Last but not least, the transfer represents 53% of the CPP fund and that seems too big when Alberta represents only 16% of CPP contributions.
There is reason to be concerned that having unstable, uncertain or low income in later life could be detrimental, says Dr. Madison Brydges, a health policy researcher at the National Institute on Ageing and lead author of its Healthy Outcomes report.
NIA Associate Fellow Doug Chandler shares insights on a proposal to withdraw Alberta from the Canada Pension Plan
A Q&A with Dr. Samantha Green, President-Elect of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, about the risks our warming world poses to older adults
Several of the measures outlined in the federal and provincial documents for 2023 reflected recommendations from the NIA and its National Seniors Strategy.
Forming intergenerational groupings of co-workers at different career stages can foster stronger knowledge translation and break down ageism in the workplace.
The Alberta government is updating its private-sector pension legislation and policy. In response to its call for feedback, the National Institute on Ageing shared recommendations based on the National Seniors Strategy and recent research on dynamic pension pools.
Former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson is the new Honorary Chair of the National Institute on Ageing’s Advisory Board. We spoke to her about why this new role is important to her.
With Quebec heading to the polls on Oct. 3, the NIA’s Dr. Samir Sinha shares his top takeaways from the provincial parties’ election promises
Last week, the National Institute on Ageing announced that we had made the difficult decision to pause our innovative NIA Long-Term Care COVID-19 Tracker Project, even though Canada and its long-term care (LTC) and retirement homes are now in their seventh wave of the pandemic.
Old Age Security payments have increased by 10 per cent for Canadians aged 75 and older. Retiring Canadians can maximize this boost by delaying uptake of their OAS benefits.
A Q&A with Joanne Dallaire, Elder and Senior Advisor, Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, Toronto Metropolitan University
All four major Ontario political parties are making big promises to better support older adults and shore up the systems that care for them as they age. How do they stack up?
The current system of long-term care in Ontario isn’t working. In fact, it’s broken. The need to reimagine how long-term care is delivered couldn't be clearer. It will be necessary to fundamentally reform the values, organization, and physical structures that underlie Ontario’s LTC homes. It will take a commitment by our government to always put LTC residents and the staff who care for them before profits. It will take a necessary culture change.
October 1 is the International Day of Older Persons ( #UNIDOP2021). This year, the occasion has a deep significance as we reflect upon the devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for older adults and the actions we must take to reform our systems of care. The urgent message of the pandemic is much larger, however. This crisis laid bare the systemic gaps and failures that have existed for decades in Canada’s political, social and economic approach to ageing. The message for #UNIDOP2021 in Canada is this—we need a plan.
At the National Institute on Ageing, we have long advocated for greater federal leadership and provincial cooperation to address the challenges and to harness the opportunities of Canada’s ageing population. The need for a coordinated, comprehensive, national strategy has become acute over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought to public attention the inadequacies, gaps and failures of our systems of care for older adults—with tragic results. With an election only weeks away, on September 20, 2021, Canadians now have an opportunity to chart a new course for ageing in Canada.
Rather than earmarking limited public dollars for renovating, building and furnishing LTC homes, a portion of these funds can be better employed by supporting older Canadians and Icelanders alike to remain in their own homes, in their own beds, where they want to be. Actualizing a robust homecare system would require greater flexibility in our public healthcare services, ensuring the provision of high quality care within the home. This includes supports like personal care workers, physiotherapists, doctors and nurses.
Vaccination rates among older adults have progressively increased since Canada began its national rollout in December 2020, but several factors contributed to the preventable deaths of potentially hundreds of older adults. Federal and provincial governments missed important opportunities to vaccinate older adults in a timely and equitable way. This caused undue harm and preventable deaths within the population that is most vulnerable to serious health outcomes as a result of COVID-19.
The devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada’s long-term care (LTC) homes are well-known. With the deaths of more than 15,000 residents and workers in LTC settings across the country, a national discussion has ignited around the urgent need for comprehensive and meaningful reform. However, the significant lack of data on those living and working in Canada’s long-term care homes is a major gap that could limit the effectiveness of policies and programs meant to improve systems of care for older adults.
As first and second dose COVID-19 vaccination rates in Canada continue to rise, it is time for long-term care (LTC) homes to safely loosen restrictions and improve the health, well-being, and quality of life of LTC residents and their loved ones. To support LTC homes to reduce restrictions and return greater balance to residents’ lives, the NIA has identified 10 recommendations designed to improve the health and well-being of residents while balancing the ongoing risks posed by the pandemic.
Much of what we need to do has been well known for years and luckily isn't rocket science. But it will take political will, and a federal, provincial and territorial coordination of efforts. We thus recommend the federal government to fully support the work ahead that will enable the creation of new National LTC Standards and to help its provinces and territories in addressing these issues once and for all.