The CEO of the BC Care Providers Association says there needs to be national strategy to address the issues that will come with an aging population.

With new 2021 census data showing that people over 85 are the fastest-growing age group in the country, Terry Lake says Canada is not prepared for what is expected to be a crisis in elder care.

“People have been talking about it for decades really and we really haven’t planned but the fact is we don’t have the physical infrastructure necessary to be able to provide long term care and assisted living to meet the demand of our aging population, and we certainly don’t have the health human resources necessary,” Lake said.

“I think this is a big wakeup for all of us. We’ve been sounding this alarm for quite a while.”

Speaking on NL Newsday, he says the longer the issue is put off, the harder and more expensive it will be to address in the future.

“Now there have been some steps taken particularly on the health human resources side,” Lake noted.

“We’re seeing healthcare aides being trained at a record pace in B.C., and we’ve seen efforts to speed up the recognition of credentials of foreign trained health professionals. All of that is good but we really haven’t seen the commitment on the capital side to build more facilities for these people to live.”

In B.C., the number of seniors surpassed one million for the first time, with people aged 65 and older making up 20.3 per cent of the province’s population. Statistics Canada says it is an all-time high for provinces west of Quebec.

“When you look at the number of people over 85, we know the health care needs of people in that age category are much much higher, we simply don’t have the capacity to manage that at the moment,” Lake added.

“If we want to have a true national strategy, we have to tie that increased funding to the needs of the fastest growing part of the population, which also has the highest healthcare needs.”