Older, wiser, broker

Canadian seniors grapple with financial Insecurity, social Isolation, and inadequate healthcare.
About eight million Canadians are aged 65 and older, almost 20% of the total population. Single seniors, particularly women, are highly likely to be in poverty.  One-third of the senior population, mostly the women, have a mobility disability. And loneliness is a significant issue for many seniors, and again this is affecting mostly women.
In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Enid Kohler looks into these concerns, and possible solutions.

Human Rights Magazine is produced by The Upstream Journal magazine. The host, Derek MacCuish, is editor of both. If you agree that informed reporting on human rights and social justice issues is important, your support would be welcome. Please rate the podcast wherever you listen to it, and tell your friends about episodes that you find interesting. Why not consider making a financial contribution to help us cover costs?  You are always welcome to email with your comments.

Transcript

“Older, Wiser, Broker: Canadian Seniors Grapple with Financial Insecurity, Social Isolation, and Inadequate Healthcare”

 Introduction by Derek MacCuish.  About 8 million Canadians are aged 65 and older, almost 20% of the total population. Single seniors, particularly women, are highly likely to be in poverty.  One-third of the senior population, mostly the women, have a mobility disability. And loneliness is a significant issue for many seniors, and again this is affecting mostly women.

In this episode of Human Rights Magazine, Enid Kohler looks into these concerns, and possible solutions.

 Multiple Audio Clips Combined 

 I realized I would not ​​​​​​have enough money to take care of myself for the rest of my life. At the end of the day, we will all become old, and you want to have the best care possible. The health system here is really blocked. 

 They are here, they are going to be here, they are Canadians, so we cannot exclude them. We have to start taking care of ourselves because the government isn't going to, doesn't have the will to, doesn't have the resources to. 

 Host Enid Kohler: Canadian seniors, those aged over 65, are projected to make up nearly one-fourth of the national population by 2040.

 However, their needs often go neglected. Across the nation, Canadian seniors grapple with financial insecurity, social isolation and loneliness, and inadequate access to health care. Today, this podcast will explore how and why Canada's senior populations are struggling in these areas, and what solutions we can implement to support this demographic.

 I spoke with four individuals who deeply understand the challenges Canadian seniors confront today. First, we will hear from Alexis Lebrun. 

 I spoke with Alexis Lebrun over Zoom, who is the Team Coordinator with Quebec-based non-profit organization Les Petits Frères, or the Little Brothers in English. With a degree in social work from the Université du Québec à Montréal, Alexis has worked with Les Petits Frères since 2021. The organization, founded in 1962 and based across 12 regions of Quebec, aims to reduce loneliness among Quebec seniors who lack strong connections to friends and family. Run primarily by volunteers, Les Petits Frères organizes social events in a buddy system between volunteers and seniors to ensure its members have companionship until the end of their lives.

 Here is some of my conversation with Alexis Lebrun about his work with Les Petits Frères. 

 Alexis told me how the members of Les Petits Frères don't have many friends, family members, or other social support, and are often completely alone. Les Petits Frères ensures these individuals have someone to keep them company, someone to visit them, and help them if they are sick or need other kinds of support.

 So I find that incredibly important and relevant, Alexis says, to be able to bring a bit of my experience to try to reduce social isolation among older people. Alexis continues, isolation is at the center of the challenges older people face, and is at the core of aging, especially in societies like ours, which are more individual. Children take less care of their parents, and parents too have less kids, so families are more divided than perhaps they used to be.

 Families taking care of elderly loved ones is more rare today. Unfortunately, this often leads to loneliness and isolation among elderly people. I think this loneliness will only increase in the future, Alexis told me.

 Alexis told me that depression and anxiety and other mental health problems are more and more present among older populations. We are also seeing more and more seniors who experience suicide crises, Alexis says. 

 I find this alarming. People who are 70, 80 years old, who eventually find that they have no or little reason to live, and prefer to give up rather than continue. I mentioned health care or mental health issues, which require specific support for individual specific needs, Alexis tells me. There are organizations that focus on these kinds of needs, which is important, but what we often forget is to take care of the general well-being of people.

 Having joy and pleasure in life is also critical, and that is what we try to focus on, Alexis says. It is really about the well-being of the individual, at the level of personal relationships, and at the level of mental well-being, really. It is thinking about, OK, I am 80 years old, but I still have things to do and things to live for.

 All of our activities are centered around this idea. Les Petits Frères organizes initiatives like home visits, where volunteers visit the home of an older Canadian. The main goal within these visits is to develop a personal relationship with them.

 They also run activities outside of the home, such as visits to a neighborhood café or a holiday meal. Holiday activities are particularly important to combating loneliness, as feelings of social isolation often increase around these periods of the year. The main goal is for volunteers to bring joy and happiness into the lives of older persons, Alexis tells me.

 Canada's aging population is rising, with the baby boom generation, those born between 1946 and 1965, currently between the ages of 60 and 79. Accordingly, I asked Alexis if he has seen an increase in members of Les Petits Frères or other related challenges. The number of our members is increasing and the challenges are getting bigger, Alexis says.

 We have more requests from prospective members than we have the capacity for. And in terms of needs, they are also larger, especially in terms of cognitive difficulties. People live longer, which is a great thing, but there are also more and more cognitive challenges with that.

 Amidst these challenges, Alexis and Les Petits Frères are able to bring moments of happiness to their members. When I asked Alexis if there was a particular moment he could recall when he realized the impact of his work at Les Petits Frères, he broke into a smile and began to tell me the story of a moment of happiness between a volunteer and an older woman that showed him the power of human connection at the end of one's life. 

 This older woman lived in a long-term care facility in Montreal and used a wheelchair, which limited her mobility. With no family members left, the only people she spoke to were employees of her long-term care home. She gradually fell into a deep depression. But when a Petits Frères volunteer began visiting her, she was able to leave the facility, taking short trips to a nearby café. Alexis told me that she was able to see places she hadn't been able to for decades, which dramatically improved her mental health. 

 This experience showed Alexis the positive impact socialization can have on older adults and reminded him of the importance of his work with Les Petits Frères. 

 Alexis is not alone in his advocacy work for senior Canadians. Pat Dunn, founder and executive director of Ontario-based non-profit organization Senior Women Living Together, or SWLT for short, helps senior women find affordable housing. I spoke with Pat over Zoom to learn more about her story. 

 A former public health nurse from Ontario, Pat's retirement trip to the Caribbean stopped when her husband died of a heart attack. What once promised to be several years of a relaxing retirement with her life partner no longer possible, Pat returned to Ontario, where she struggled to support herself alone. Here is Pat on creating SWLT out of her own need. 

 Pat Dunn: So I kept looking around Ontario and got more and more discouraged and there was just nothing affordable. This was in 2019. And so I thought, well, you know, I started reading about, I guess the lowest point was when I started reading about living in my car safely. And sadly, there is a really good website that helps people do that, which is terribly sad when you think about it.

 So I thought, I just thought I can't, but that's not a solution in any way, shape or form. There's got to be a better way.

 Host:  In 2019, Pat started an informal Facebook group, which she named Senior Ladies Living Together. Here is Pat on the early days of creating this online community. It began when Pat was seeking housemates in the Peterborough area. She realized rentals would be cheaper if split amongst several people. So she began to reach out to other women near her. 

 Pat Dunn: I knew about doing Facebook marketing and Facebook groups. So I opened a group and at that time I called it Senior Ladies Living Together. But the ‘ladies’ got changed to ‘women’ later on. But when I invited women in the Peterborough area, senior women in the Peterborough area, ‘come, and let's talk about it.’ At that time, I had no vision for what it was.

All I wanted was to find myself some home, some women to live with in Peterborough. So at the end of the first week, I thought maybe I'd get 10 members at most. I thought that I'd be thrilled if there'd been 10 members. But there were 50 by the end of the first week, 200 by the end of the first month. So I thought, okay, this is way bigger than my problem. And I better do some research. So I started to research. 

 Host: Pat learned that at that time in 2019, there were some 400,000 senior single women living in unaffordable housing in Ontario. 

 Pat Dunn: So I thought, good grief. But I got to try to help some because I can't just do this for me. So I'm working with the women in the Facebook group over time, over the next six months or so, asking them questions, doing polls, talking about shared living. What would it look like? How would it be good? I learned from them, and what was the potential foundation for SWLT? 

 And so over time, fast forward to now, we became a nonprofit in August of 2019. We opened a website in April of 2021, I think. And yeah, and so we're at this time now, we're on an online platform that women come to, and through our process, find others that are compatible. And on the website itself, they can talk and chat and get to know each other. They arrange meetups in groups or one-on-one. And it's worked quite well. We've had, well, now 66 women since we started. 

 Host: Since its foundation, SWLT has only become more necessary as rental and housing costs in Ontario have skyrocketed. 

 Pat Dunn: The growth in the number of people being unable to afford things in Ontario is growing by leaps and bounds. And it's not going to get better anytime soon with all of this, you know, tariff situation. So we all have to tighten our belts. We're all going to have to pull together.

 I could not have done what I did alone. I did that with many other senior women helping me. We have to start taking care of ourselves because the government isn't going to, doesn't have the will to, and with the upcoming problems, doesn't have the resources to.

 Host: Not only does SWLT combat financial insecurity, it also provides women with companionship. Pat, like Alexis, is concerned about loneliness among senior Canadians and is proud that her organization helps combat social isolation. 

 Pat Dunn: Well, loneliness and need for companionship is part of what we solve with our options. So I have two homemates that, you know, are at arm's length for a discussion, for a chat, for a laugh, for a game, for, you know, it's all right there at your fingertips. So, and people, many women with more income, with better incomes, are joining us for that reason. They're now interested in not living alone any longer, being safer by living with others, but also the companionship.

 Host: To wrap up our conversation, I asked Pat if she could recall a time when she realized the importance of her work. Here is Pat on why she does what she does.

 Pat Dunn: Every time a new person joins the Facebook group and starts to tell her story of, you know, disaster after disaster, I'm humbled by the resilience and strength and power of these women.

 So now I'm going to get emotional. But all of that wisdom and strength and resilience that they've shown over their lives—some of them were, you know, single moms that raised their kids, worked three jobs to do it. So, you know, but never jobs that bought them a pension, you know. But those kids are now in university and off having good lives. And here's mom trying to live on, you know, $1,500 a month. 

 And, you know, I work very hard at this. I work a lot of hours. And every once in a while I get tired and I get, I get discouraged. But then a story, someone calls, someone sends a message, someone writes a post in the Facebook group. And I go, oh, this is well worth doing. This has got to be done. 

 Host: Pat's concerns about senior women in Ontario extend beyond financial burdens and loneliness. In fact, both Alexis and Pat are also concerned about adequate health care for senior Canadians, referencing Canada's health care system as broken and stretched. To learn more about the nation's elderly care crisis, I spoke with Dr. Leslie Charles, associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine in the Division of Care of the Elderly at the University of Alberta. 

Dr. Charles began our conversation by explaining why it is important to pay attention to care of the elderly.

 Lesley Charles: Seniors are the patients who take up the bulk of our health care system. They have the most comorbidities. They have the most comorbidities, doctors visits, emergency visits, hospitalizations. So by paying better attention to their health, we can reduce some of that need and some of those costs. 

 Host: Dr. Charles also told me how the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated gaps in the health care system, specifically for senior Canadians. 

 Lesley Charles: So there was a huge gap in care during COVID. Obviously, it was very much so for everybody, but particularly for seniors, because they lost often a lot of all of their community support. So home care wasn't going into their homes anymore. And when that's not happening, then, you know, they're either ending up in hospital or they're relying on their families to pick up that care that they're not getting. 

 They weren't going to their day programs. And so, you know, both lacking interaction now with people coming into their home as well as getting out of their home. There was an overwhelming problem of loneliness, where people weren't interacting with anybody because not all seniors have families that can help support them.

 And this led to a lot of problems, both with mood and depression, as well as dementia. And then, of course, difficulties getting in to see physicians, both primary care and specialists, longer waiting lists. It's led to later diagnosis.

 Pre-COVID, I would say we had our wait list down to three months, which is not ideal, but it's better than six months to a year. But now we're pretty much at the nine month mark and we're just not shifting it. You know, obviously, there's still a backlog of people needing to be seen.

Now, obviously, it may be compounded by the growing seniors population, a number of referrals. But we're still over nine months is too long for a patient waiting for a dementia diagnosis. 

 Host: I asked Dr. Charles what she sees as the primary gaps in Canada's health care system. She told me that primary care is her area of focus right now. 

 Lesley Charles: The biggest concerning gaps I see is one with primary care. Like it's all over the news. Primary care is an issue for everybody, but particularly for seniors who have all these comorbidities and need regular monitoring that they're not getting. And so obviously, when they don't get that, they're more likely to get sick, more likely to end up with an emergency in the hospital. And so it's really short sighted not to fund primary care.

 And, you know, a lot of time the funding goes to the hospitals because, you know, at the end of the day, patients are going to end up there. They need that funding. But if you actually did more to help support those patients in the first place, not only would you save costs, but your patients would be healthier.

 Host: To supplement weaknesses in the health care system, family caregivers often take on the burden of care for senior family members. 

 Lesley Charles: So, you know, there's actually an immense burden placed on family caregivers. Most of the cost of caring for seniors actually falls to family caregivers as opposed to the health care system. They are providing care in terms of looking after activities of daily living. So that might be basic activities like helping somebody get washed, dressed, go in the bath, helping them walk, helping cutting up their food so they can eat. And then, you know, obviously those patients needing that kind of care are at a higher level of burden.

 But then there's also things like helping them get to appointments, helping them pay their bills or making sure they're taking their medications, getting their groceries, helping them clean the house, all of those kinds of things. It all adds up to a lot of time and there's a lot of costs.

 Host: Pat Dunn has personally experienced the strain of caregiving. Here is Pat on caring for her housemate when she had to wait nearly one year for a knee replacement.

 Pat Dunn: She was in such horrible pain because both of her knees needed replacing. She could hardly walk. Within a year, she'd lost all her strength and she could hardly get out of bed. Finally got the one knee replaced and then three months later, the other one replaced. But that process from beginning to end for me as a caregiver in the house, I was stunned because not that I didn't want to or wouldn't provide the help, but there were things I couldn't do. I can't lift my home mate up in the bed by myself. I can't do that!

 Host: Pat also spoke about the financial burden to caregiving, telling me how the burden of caregiving increases with financial instability. If you have the means to, it is possible to pay for a care worker to come into the home. However, as in Pat's case, she had to shoulder the burden of care alone. 

 It is clear from Pat's personal experience that the health care system does not provide adequate support for Canadian seniors today. Dr. Charles told me why all Canadians, regardless of their age, need to pay attention to elderly care. 

 Lesley Charles: So I think it's important because at the end of the day, we will all become old and you want to have the best care possible. It's easy to think when you're young and healthy, well, you know, ‘I don't need the hospital, I don't need this, I don't need that.’ But at some point we all will. And so, you know, it's in all of our best interests to make sure that that care is there for us when we need it. 

 Host: Canadian seniors at large face financial insecurity, social isolation and barriers to accessing health care. But for older racialized immigrants arriving in Canada, these challenges are even more pronounced.

 To understand why this demographic is particularly vulnerable, I spoke with Dr. Mohammed Khan, associate professor at the University of Manitoba in the Faculty of Social Work. With an educational background in social work and social welfare, Dr. Khan's research focuses on economic justice for historically marginalized populations. 

 Our conversation began by speaking about the financial well-being of older racialized immigrants in Canada.

 Mohammad Khan: You see, take a scenario this way, that most older adult immigrants who come here at their late age, in most cases they come under a family reunification category of immigration. Mostly their children or grandchildren, they invited them to come here for family reunification. And when the older adults come, mostly from Asian countries or African countries, as you know, that in a traditional social and cultural atmosphere in those areas, that they don't have those social security systems built in those countries.

 Normally it's a kind of extended family responsibility that parents raise their kids, and the kids at their later age, they take care of their parents, grandparents, and mainly the extended family who takes care of their family, older members of the family. That's the traditional system in those countries. But when their children migrate to a new country like Canada, they leave their parents or grandparents behind.

 But they cannot leave their responsibility. It's from, you can say the social values that they have, their social obligation that, okay, ‘I need to take care of my parents or grandparents.’

 You know, the policy that works here is there is a kind of a catch here. The catch is that when you bring your older adult parents or grandparents, you need to sign a kind of a commitment in the contract that you will be taking care of them. Initially, this commitment was for 10 years since 2014. But now the Canadian Immigration Ministry changed it to now 20 years. It's called the ‘20 years kind of dependency period.’ That [for] 20 years, they will be depending on their sponsoring kids or grandkids. And what happens is that during this period of time, these older adults, they cannot access any government benefits like all the security, guaranteed income supplement.

 And you cannot think of their pension in Canada because they were not in Canada. How come they have developed their pension? So they're out of [a] pension. So the three pillars that really work for Canadian seniors, it's not going to work for this group of people. We put them in a vulnerable situation. 

 Host: I asked Dr. Khan what could have motivated policymakers to institute this 20-year dependency clause in the first place. Here is his response.

 Mohammad Khan: You know, that's very hard to say that what's in their mind, but what I can do like you that, of course, that government sometimes they want to, we are always thinking about dollars and cents in that way, that we do not want to spend a lot. Because it's your parents you're bringing in for family infection. So it's your responsibility to take care of them. It's not the government's responsibility to take care of them.

 So it's creating a kind of, I would say, a closed kind of thing, that you are bringing those older adults and putting [them] in a kind of enclosure that they are not able to integrate into the mainstream Canadian society. In terms of anything, you know, the social engagement from economic engagement, like employment, every other thing. So they will be confined in family rooms. They cannot come to the greater community.

 So I don't think that maybe the government thinks that way, that we are bringing them to confine them, but [they are creating a system that really forces] these people to be confined within the family only. That's a missing opportunity, I would say, that we argue that these people have a lot to even contribute to the Canadian society in a way, because many of them were very experienced from lived experience. They have professional experience. They have their work experience and a lot to offer to the Canadian society. 

 Host: Dr. Khan, like Dr. Charles, Alexis and Pat, is also concerned about social isolation among senior Canadians. He told me how racialized older immigrants face a particular kind of isolation by remaining confined to their family's homes.

 Mohammad Khan: Because I myself am an immigrant, and I mix with my community and talk to those folks. And I know from my work and also from just talking to immigrants, I know that it's not just that economic well-being, it hurts the general well-being as well. They experience a high level of social isolation and loneliness, because they have limited opportunity to mingle with anyone. They're very isolated. Maybe their kids are working outside. Maybe at the weekend they find some time.

 Most of them cannot even drive because they do not have a driver's license. They come there, adult age, I mean late age, you need a driver's license. And in many places in Canada, public transport is not that good that these older folks can go and access it. So they become forced to stay at home.

 Whenever their kids have some time, they can take them to a park or a shopping mall or a friend's house, totally depending on their kids and grandkids. Their movement is even limited. So it's not just economic well-being, it's their overall well-being. And I would say that social isolation and loneliness is one of the big factors that hurts their overall well-being. 

 Host: To close out our conversation, I asked Dr. Khan, what would social and economic well-being for racialized older immigrants look like? What are some solutions we can implement to support this demographic in Canada? 

 Mohammad Khan: Since we are welcoming these older adults coming to Canada, we should help them to, or create opportunities for them to integrate into Canadian society. I also believe that the government thinks the same way, but the way we put the policy, that doesn't really work that way.

 Particularly this 10-year and 20-year dependency policy, that really confines these older adults into a pocket. I mean, it confines them into the family. They cannot come outside the family, integrate into the community, into the Canadian society.

 So I would say from a policy perspective, maybe we need to rethink about this 20-year dependency policy. This really created a kind of ‘we versus them’ thing that, ‘okay, these are different folks.’ 

 So we have, I think we have a kind of attitude in a way that, okay, these folks are going to be a burden for the Canadian economy. So let's put them aside and it makes them responsible for their families like children. It's not the responsibility of the Canadian government. I think we should move away from this kind of attitude.

 Rather, we said, okay, these folks are coming to Canada and let's welcome them and help them to integrate into Canadian society and believe that they also have a lot to contribute to the Canadian society in many ways. They can contribute to their family. They can contribute to the community, but we need to give them the opportunity to contribute.

  I think we need to pay special attention to this group of people because they are here, they are going to be here, they are Canadians, so we cannot exclude them.

 Host: It is clear that Canada's senior population is not receiving the support it needs to maximize its economic and social well-being. Activists like Alexis and Pat and academic researchers like Dr. Charles and Dr. Khan are sounding the alarm bell about Canadian seniors' vulnerabilities, but solutions exist like co-housing, increased funding for primary health care, and opportunities for genuine human connection, all of which can help improve Canadian seniors' quality of life. A critical first step is simply paying attention and valuing the perspectives of senior Canadians.

 Alexis said that we often put more focus on young people, assuming that the perspectives of younger generations are more interesting than that of senior citizens. When we go out in the street, we don't often see older people, Alexis says. They become invisible, their needs and desires fading into the background as they age.

 But it is critical that older people are not ignored. Alexis says, ‘they, too, are citizens with valuable life experience.’

 Alexis concluded our conversation by emphasizing that it is important for younger and older generations to form relationships with one another. Older people have unique perspectives, allowing young people to see the world from a new perspective, Alexis told me. They have so many things to say. We need to listen to them.