Canada’s government needs to think harder about our aging society

TORONTO— In my column last week I argued that Canada was an under-performer, that we lack the ambition and strategies to realize our full potential. A key reason is a lack of serious and far-seeing vision and leadership in both our private and public sectors: our top business executives, politicians and senior civil servants do not think big. As a result, too much of our public policy is transactional or opportunistic rather than ambitious and strategic. For all the talk by the Trudeau government about its commitment to evidence-based policy, evidence is missing from most public policy pronouncements. Indeed, it is likely there is little evidence to back many government pronouncements. The analytical capability of most government departments has been much diminished over time. As has been said, when there is little demand, there is little supply. We are a country too often happy with bronze medals rather than striving harder for golds. This doesn’t prevent our politicians from describing Canada as a world leader in almost any field one cares to name, but boasting is not the same as achievement. The failure to develop a Think Big strategy for infrastructure, a subject I wrote about last week, is one example of our lack of strategic ambition. Another example is the lack of serious planning for an aging society—to develop the technologies and systems to improve the quality of life for older Canadians. The foresight team in Britain’s Government Office for Science published a report in 2016 titled "Future of an aging population," which sets out the major challenges and opportunities of an aging population; what needs to be done to prepare the country’s future seniors for life in an aging world; and what can be done to improve the quality of life and care for those already in retirement. It sees the challenges of an aging society as crossing many areas of government, not just one department: for example, pensions, housing, healthcare, mobility, frailty and inclusiveness, training and lifelong learning, systems of care, and infrastructure. As the population ages, so will the workforce. So future productivity and economic success will increasingly be tied to that of older workers. This is why lifelong learning, and access to training for older workers, is so important. Enabling people to work longer will enable society to better support growing numbers of the elderly. The number of Canadians 75 and older is projected to grow from 2.2 million in 2010 and just over 2.7 million now to 4.6 million in 2031, barely a decade from now, and 6.3 million by 2041. Without improvements in health, the British report says, population aging will lead to higher levels of ill-health and disability. Moreover, the demand and supply of care will diverge, with “more people needing physical and financial support, at a time when there are fewer people able to fund public services and provide care.” The report sets out a wide-ranging set of recommendations as well as providing much helpful data. It commissioned some 22 expert studies as part of its work. We have no institutional capacity to generate such a report—nor does, it seem, the government or opposition parties feel there is any need for one. The Mulroney government eliminated the Economic Council of Canada and the Science Council of Canada, which had the capacity to do similar work. No government since has seen fit to re-establish this capacity. The British have a Government Office for Science, led by a government chief scientific adviser who reports to the prime minister and cabinet. The office includes a Foresight Team that looks at future trends and suggests ways in which society could prepare for change. It produces useful work that helps guide both public understanding and debate and policymaking. The Trudeau government recently appointed a chief science adviser, Mona Nemer, but her mandate is much narrower. There is nothing in her mandate that would, for example, let her undertake foresight studies and publish them. In fact her budget is too small to undertake a serious initiative. This is not good news. We need to do a much better job in planning for our future, paying much more attention to the need for public evidence to back government policies, and to set out strategies to create future opportunities. The approach of the Harper and Trudeau governments—secrecy, lack of evidence to support decisions, opportunistic policies, and no foresight capacity—is a recipe for underperformance, which is what we have today. David Crane can be reached at crane@interlog.com. The Hill Times