Why This Man Dedicated Three Decades to Senior Welfare

speaker-1 (00:03.66)
Hey folks, welcome back. Today we have Dan Levitt. Dan is a seniors advocate with the BC government. But Dan, it always sounds better for people to tell themselves who they are and what they do rather than me saying it. So why don’t you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about who you are.

speaker-0 (00:25.614)
So Dan Levitt, BC Seniors Advocate. We’re a office of the provincial government and our responsibility is to monitor senior services, similar to what a watchdog would do or an independent office does. We look at five areas of government services for seniors. We start with healthcare. So everything from access to primary care to your family physician, all the way to palliative care and everything in between.

surgical wait lists, access to long-term care, vaccination coverage, et cetera. Then we look at housing and generally we look at people who own homes, what supports they need to stay where they are. And then also people who rent, which is really the area that we’re most concerned about affordability of renters and also the rent subsidies for market renters for low-income seniors. Look at transportation.

So which is really critical for seniors to stay independent, whether they drive their own car, which more and more are doing, or the public transportation system and specifically services like HandiDart, which are directed and geared towards older persons. And as well, we look at income supports. So basically what subsidies and programs does the social development ministry and poverty reduction ministry have for seniors? And lastly, the fifth area we look at is community supports. What supports are available?

for seniors to age in the communities where they live. So we wrap around that. We monitor those services. We issue several reports every year of how we’re doing as a province supporting seniors. And we also have an informational referral line that anyone can call on Monday to Friday and somebody will answer the phone. And we do outreach. And I go around the province, meeting with seniors and service providers, and also talking to government officials about…

how things are going for seniors. And it’s really an honor and privilege to be in this role. I’ve been doing it for two years. My predecessor, Isabelle McKenzie, did it for a decade. She was the first seniors advocate in the country. We now have three others. So there’s four of us, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Labrador, and BC. And I’m optimistic, cautiously, that one day every jurisdiction in Canada, including at the federal level, they’ll be a seniors advocate because more and more people are becoming seniors.

speaker-1 (02:42.008)
So you were telling me a story just before we started about how you saw a bus stop with an iPhone on it. Tell us a bit about that because you could see the enthusiasm if you were talking about that.

speaker-0 (02:56.568)
Well, I’m interested as a gerontologist, I’m interested in anything to do with older people, whatever it is. If it’s the person who at the swim across Lake Okanagan every summer, I go try to find the oldest person who swam that heat that meet and we become friends since. And then I’m also interested in how Hollywood, how the media portrays seniors, which is often reflective of how society values or doesn’t value seniors. So.

Recently, I was quite happy to see that Apple has put on there for their latest iPhone, put a bunch of seniors, they happen to look like they’re in their 70s or maybe their 80s and they’re all look like they’re cooking and there’s a beautiful kind of casserole dish of something that looks delicious. And I think one of them is taking a selfie. And I love the fact that they were showing seniors being tech savvy because

Technology is one of those areas where there’s this ageism myth that seniors can’t use technology and the only younger people can use technology and younger people are better than the old people at using technology. Well, the truth of the matter really is that many seniors don’t use technology for one reason. It’s not because they can’t figure out how to use that technology. It’s because they can’t afford it. A quarter of all seniors in our province of BC are living on $2,000 a month. The median

income for seniors in our province is just over $3,000 a month. So you start thinking about the cost of technology, it’s no wonder why seniors don’t have technology at their fingertips. They just can’t afford it.

speaker-1 (04:35.982)
It’s interesting. My dad’s 94 years old. And I want to say eight years ago or so, I got him… I didn’t want him, if he fell, to not be able to call or get somebody. So I gave him an old iPhone that we had. The problem he had was he wasn’t able to actually use it because he couldn’t figure out the technology. If he put it up against his ear, it would interfere with his hearing aid, that sort of thing.

One of the things I’ve learned is that a lot of the technologies right now are being designed by people in their late 20s, early 30s. And while they may be well-intentioned, they can’t think about and have never thought about those type of issues.

speaker-0 (05:24.77)
Yeah, you’re right. I can’t remember which author said this many years ago, but youth is wasted on the young. Is an author said that. And then the thing about, you I remember being in that age group too and thinking about, you know, the inevitable things that might happen as you grow older and the changes that happen to all of us. Some of them are just part of the natural cycle of aging. Some of them are not part of natural cycle of aging.

But to your point, we should be making sure that we’re designing technology that can be used by everybody. And your dad’s example is perfect because the very company that I’m referring to, Apple, won’t mention them again in the interview, but Apple has those things that you have in your ears. And the earbuds. And then so the earbuds are in some jurisdictions, I believe they’re going to be legalized in Canada and I think in BC eventually, if they’re not already.

speaker-1 (06:09.986)
the the air but

speaker-0 (06:20.11)
as a hearing aid. they’re essentially, if we go to the stores and buy over the counter reading glasses. So I appreciate there’s audiologists that will have concerns and rightly so we should make sure we’re getting properly fitted and tested devices and that they’re hearing aids. But for those people who are using them already, who use the technology, there’s some good evidence that that is a stop gap measure until you can get and have the money for the whole.

hearing aid. I think there’s, you know, some piece of technology to your dad’s example. If he could use those, he probably will be to use the phone. And I know my older daughter who has a hearing aid and her hearing aid is connected to her phone. So she’s there watching a show on her computer or she’s having a conversation, a video chat. And I’m still not used to the fact that I can’t hear the person she’s speaking to that she can hear in the ears and she’s having that conversation. So technology needs to be available for everybody.

speaker-1 (07:21.166)
So that’s a nice segue into the healthcare side of things, which was that first pillar that you were talking about. Tell me what’s going on from a healthcare point of view. What are the struggles that are being going on? What are some of the things that are positives? Because there’s always good and bad with everything. What’s going on in the healthcare side of things? And yes, I know this is specific to BC.

speaker-0 (07:44.75)
Sure. So I guess one of the pauses I can point out is that over the past, six years, the amount of community-based services, specifically the non-clinical community services, so things like food programs, things like cleaning your house or maybe doing yard work or we call it the Better Own Program in our province, and these are things that often help people age in place where they are and sustain them.

services in those areas have gone up dramatically. And in fact, if there’s any concern at all, it’s just that more and more people are looking for those services and government has made a commitment to fund them and increase the funding. So that’s good news. Where we aren’t faring as well is, for example, things like surgical waiting times. Cataracts are one of the top five people use. So cataract surgery wait times have actually decreased, which is good news. But the other four that are most common are hips and knees.

I think one of them is 60 % longer wait times, the other 70 % more wait times, and we’re not hitting the national benchmark. The other two are abdominal hernia replacement therapy, I think is, or surgery, which I think is in the teens. And then prostate cancer surgery is I think almost 30 % increase in wait time. So we’re not faring well there. Then we look at things like how long a senior’s spending in a hospital.

waiting for discharge. Last year, there were over 20,000 seniors who were designated as alternate level of care patients, means ALC, they’re for discharge to home or to a care home. And on the ones who were discharged or waiting for discharge to long-term care, almost 6,000 people were in that situation. While they’re waiting, they’re waiting now, I think about five extra days, so five or six extra days compared to just six years ago.

or I think it might have increased in one year. Anyway, when we look at the cost of that ALC bed at $1,200 a day compared to $300 a day for long-term care, you don’t need to be a health economist to know that it’s better off for the taxpayer if they’re in long-term care. However, we haven’t invested enough in long-term care. So the cost of someone being in hospital is four times the amount of being in long-term care.

speaker-0 (10:04.686)
And the long-term care homes, people on the wait list now over 7,000 when we last checked. And that’s gone up by 200 % over the past decade. When we look at how long people are waiting, not only are there more people, but the longer wait times, we’re waiting now 10 months instead of five months. That’s almost a hundred percent increase. And we’ve even delayed some of the projects that were promised to be built. So we’re really in tough shape right now when we look at long-term care.

how long people are waiting in hospital, also access to surgery. So those three examples in healthcare are troubling. And when you think about the home care services, if you’re requiring that kind of support at home, say one hour a day of home care, and you are living on approximately $30,000 a year, which is say the 45th percentile approximately of all seniors, and you need that one hour of home care over the course of a year.

you’re required to pay a user fee and that user fee will amount to $9,000. So now a third of your income’s gone and now you’re deciding, do I really need the home care? Can I go without it? Or can I go with something else because seniors are on fixed income, many of them in those cases. And in some instances, those seniors are moving into long-term care prematurely because it’s less expensive. So there are many areas where we can certainly do better.

And we have to, I think, treat seniors and treat the healthcare needs they have just like everybody else and access to things like vaccinations, preventative medicine. We have a suite of vaccinations for children. We should have a suite of vaccinations that’s covered for seniors, especially those who are low income and especially those who would have a severe illness as a result of getting things like shingles or RSV, et cetera. on the healthcare file, there’s much more we can do to improve.

the health and overall well-being of seniors.

speaker-1 (12:01.866)
Interesting. I had interviewed, there’s two areas there that was of interest. One, I interviewed Dr. Susan Anguidenos, and I mispronounced her name from the USC School of Gerontology, I want to say four weeks ago. And she, her area of specialty is palliative care, and how there’s that shift to trying to have that at home because of how much less it costs. But it

Her research seemed to indicate there was a heavy dependency on the family as opposed to an external provider. Is that happening in BC as well or is it still more dependent on the external service provider?

speaker-0 (12:42.478)
So I think the fact that we’re not investing enough in seniors care generally, acute care for seniors, think about geriatrics in our province, very limited if you can even access any. Where we think about people aging in place, if you don’t have a spouse, if you’re single or widowed, if you don’t have a family, and that’s a changing dynamic we’re gonna see more and more of going forward, really, you’re not gonna be able to age in place at home because you need those supports. So really without a family support system,

children, a sibling, a spouse, really it’s not feasible to stay at home. But when we think about palliative care, you just think about the general rights that many people have been fighting for. Generally, the human right of access to healthcare, which includes hospital care, includes physician. It should also be including palliative care and things like long-term care. But palliative care specifically, if you can get into a palliative care unit in a teaching hospital,

there’s a certain standard there that is quite remarkable. And not that every person in the healthcare system who’s caring for someone who’s dying isn’t providing the best possible experience and care they can, but they’re not necessarily trained to do palliative care in the way that you’d see in a teaching hospital. And the hospices that we have in the province really haven’t been built out in the way other jurisdictions have. And I always turn to St. Christopher’s Hospice, which is just outside of London.

really one of the first modern day hospices started by Cecile Saunders probably half a century ago or so. And it’s really a community-based, like you’re mentioning, a community-based service where you would spend most of your time at home. And then there is a hospital-like place you can go when you need it. But the idea of being palliative and being at home with family and friends in the community where you live is really what I think most of us should have that dignified access to.

as much as possible, especially with an aging demographic where more and more people will be facing that reality.

speaker-1 (14:46.19)
You also went to talking about a suite of vaccines, vaccinations for the elderly, seniors. By the way, that’s one of my issues is trying to figure out what terminology I should be using nowadays.

A few weeks back I interviewed Alison Boe, who is with Active Retirement Ireland, because I wanted to get an external from North America, their view on how they’re doing things. And they had a big push with regards to the shingles vaccine, where they were trying to push that in policy within Ireland. Is there any set vaccinations right now? If there aren’t, what is being pushed right now, from a policy change point of view?

speaker-0 (15:30.542)
One of our biggest challenges right now with vaccinations is the cost of them. The cost of seniors vaccinations are much more expensive than the ones children get, the we all got when we were younger. So influenza, the high dose one, this is the super vaccination that’s available for seniors. It’s generally covered by governments in Canada. When we look then at the next one, less is covered, but certainly,

Seniors are dying every year from the pandemic, still from COVID. Influenza, unfortunately before the pandemic, it wasn’t considered mandatory, for example, in long-term care for the people who live there, people who work there, people who visit to get the vaccination. And so people are dying in places like long-term care, I think unnecessarily from influenza because the vaccine’s not mandated and not always available.

Then you have the the COVID vaccine as I mentioned, and then you start thinking about, well pneumococcal for pneumonia. We call it the old man’s disease. It’s no friend to an older person. We should be vaccinating, making sure pneumococcal is available. And then of course, RSV, which does impact younger people more than older adults, but the RSV vaccination should be available. And the one that everyone talks about that you mentioned from your contact in Ireland is the shingles vaccine.

And the new vaccination is reportedly more effective than the previous one. And we’ve been advocating with public health, with my colleague, Dr. Henry, and with Ministry of Finance, we’ve been advocating that this be covered for all seniors, especially those with low income and especially those who, if they got shingles, would have severe illness. And people do die with shingles.

And it’s just unfortunate the cost is prohibitive right now for a government that is looking at a financial severe deficit. That being said, we have to find money for these essential programs that seniors should have access to. And unfortunately, some seniors can’t afford the vaccinations because of the cost.

speaker-1 (17:45.294)
That’s the physical health care. What about the mental side of things? I’ve had a number of guests talk about how the mental ties in with the physical. What was her name? Dr. Helen Levretzky.

from the UCLA Longevity Center. Her area of research focuses on the mind, body and soul together. And that the mental aspect will help with the longevity for the physical as opposed to Western medicine to just focus it on the physical. What’s going on from there? And I suspect that ties into your community support area that you’re focused on.

speaker-0 (18:39.756)
Yeah. Also thanks for raising it. So maybe I’ll touch on two things. we all need, from my point of view, we all need purposeful, a purpose in our life, a reason to get out of bed. And, when you don’t have that, it’s, know for many of us, can be depressive. It can be, you start wondering how you’re, why you’re lonely, you’re socially excluded, cetera. So one of things that was done by some social psychologist researchers back in 1976,

Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin did this research. was a landmark research they did where they went into a care home in New England and they gave half of the residents there a plant. And they said, you’re responsible for this plant. You have to make sure it grows, meaning you’ve got to make sure it gets sunlight, it gets water, it’s fertilized, and it grows. That’s your responsibility. Any questions? Then they went to the other half of the residents.

and the other half was the control group, and they gave them the same plant and they said, the staff will take care of the plant, any questions? The researchers left, they came back later on, they looked at the comorbidities, the health and wellbeing of the ones who were in the control group, and they weren’t doing as well as they had done when they arrived. More of them were on those anti-psychotic medications, one had passed away, they were trying to leave the unit, if you will, elope.

from the space they were in. They had more pressure ulcers. Their general health outcomes weren’t as favorable. Then on the experimental group where they had that responsibility induced peace, they were all doing better. They had less medications they had to use. They didn’t wanna wander around. They were more social. They were happier. And the reason was because they had responsibility. So this whole mental health thing. So it happens to men and women, but men are more…

likely to go through this because we define ourselves often by the work we do when we were out of work. But the purpose is missing. there’s a whole thing around having a purpose, having value. And that’s why ageism should be combated so much is for that reason. The other thing I just would like to mention just a little bit about it’s just the how we design and how we we experience life in the cities that we’re living in the communities. I think it’s so important to be connected, whatever that is, to the space where you’re living and making sure that

speaker-0 (21:04.962)
the communities we live in are age friendly and that you can get out and about and do things to keep connected with people. If it’s joining a club, having activities to do, staying close with family and friends, because I think that is more challenging with mobility, transportation, cost, hearing. And we have to make sure that we’re the seniors in our lives that we’re engaged with and supporting as much as possible.

speaker-1 (21:31.214)
I’ve talked with a number of people that are all of the same opinion that the concept of retirement really should go away. I’ve said this example a number of times that in the 90s I remember reading that people go through four phases, four changes in their careers. I’ve come to the expectation really that retirement is not working and stop. There’s a phasing through life.

that should be happening and the term of retirement should go away. Are we still just stuck in that mindset of retirement or is there a change that’s starting to occur that it’s just a phase going through life?

speaker-0 (22:15.79)
Well, I’d like to see it’s a good, it’s a good thought to consider, but I’d like to see that every single decade of your life is as important as the previous one, the next one. And that, um, yes, you might not necessarily at 65 be going to work, but we had two people in our office who were in their seventies and, uh, they continued working and, uh, no surprise to me. And, um, no one ever said they were too old for their job. And you think about,

You know, are the classic rock stars, the Rolling Stones. Despite health concerns and life child choices, they’re going like they always have been. They’re in their eighties. When other people are told they’re too old for their jobs, no one to go to one of their concerts, whatever, critique them for not hitting the high notes or the low notes or being the Rolling Stones. So I think if we look at that next thing around the corner as exciting, if we look at the next birthday as being

to celebrate versus something to fear. If we think about whatever happens, we’ll figure a way of adjusting and accommodating those changes in our lives. And the examples I always like talking about, not everyone can do this, but mobility is so important and just any kind of movement at all, whether it’s walking, whether it’s swimming, whether it’s doing Pilates or whatever we do. I the message is the sofa is not, the couch is not your friend.

But when you think when I like going to these running races and trying to meet with the oldest person. So the Vancouver Sun Run happens every year. think there was almost 60,000 people this year. An 85 year old named Akram got an award, think for, I think it did the 10 K in about an hour and 10 minutes. And he won his age category. And he actually posted on Facebook that he was holding back for the BMO half marathon two weeks later. So.

you see these people who are continuing to enjoy life at any stage. And I’ll just mention one last thing here is around longevity. When we think about happiness, it’s actually interesting is that that movie with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matho called grumpy old men. It didn’t help our cause because older people are happier than middle aged people or young people. if you go to young people, my great nephew, Miles, he’s having a birthday party soon.

speaker-0 (24:35.918)
he’ll be turning five. He’s one of the happiest guys at our family functions. And then you got my dad who’s almost 90 and he’s also super, super happy. You get the idea, right? These are how many years, 85 years apart in age basically. And then you have the rest of us, his parents who I love adore, not so happy. They got lots of pressures on them with the generational squeeze thing going on, the white picket fence goals they have, and some of us who are kind of

Kids have moved out, but we’re still stressed out about certain things. So you have the either end. So I think if you look at the fact that old age is something to look forward to and going back to Akram, the runner, he was so excited with the running the Sun Run this year because when he turned 85, he entered a new age category. So his 85th birthday wasn’t something to fear. It was something to celebrate because he had a better chance of claiming first prize.

speaker-1 (25:33.454)
You know, it’s interesting. My last two interviews, it both came up spontaneously. Abigail Trafford, she’s a former columnist with Washington Post. I interviewed her because her column was on aging. And she said when she was in her 60s, she interviewed somebody that was 94. And that 94-year-old said that her happiest decade was her 80s.

simply because she was past all those responsibilities and there was really no responsibility on her anymore. And she was just free to do whatever she wanted. The next interview, my last interview was with Mary Cronin, who is a Boston College researcher on entrepreneurship with people over 50. And she said the same sort of thing, that people were saying that when they got into their 80s, they were their happiest. It’s interesting. Now you’re the third person in a row that’s brought that up.

speaker-0 (26:32.398)
And I think we can celebrate. Let me just grab an example of showing you something. So when we think about the fashion industry, here’s, this is, if you can see it on the screen, this is Philippines Vogue Magazine. I think it was from a couple of years ago. And the lady here is, I think she was 106, and 106 year old on the cover of Vogue Magazine. So we’re showing here that senior’s lives matter.

and that at 106, you can be a celebrity. Not just the fact that you are 106, but the fact that she’s a tattoo artist and she’s done that all her life. And I remember one of the inspirations I had, I certainly shared it and wrote about it was during the pandemic, it happened to be the March edition, right? When the pandemic was starting in 2020, Dame Judy Dench was on the cover of British Folk Magazine.

and comparing her to Kate Moss, who was the most covered girl on that magazine. Judy Dench was there not because of her beauty, although she is beautiful. She was there because of her accomplishments and we’re celebrating older people. So I think this idea that your eighties could be your best decade of your life should be something that we’re gearing towards. And in particular in Canada, especially around the issue around truth and reconciliation, we should be making sure

that every single Canadian has an equal opportunity to reach those years. And not everyone in our country, especially our indigenous population, with colonialism, we haven’t done a good job and a good enough job in providing the same equal opportunity for everyone to reach an old age.

speaker-1 (28:19.05)
I had my introductory meeting this morning with a gentleman that focuses on aging for blacks down in the States. His name is Raymond Jetson. And he was saying the same sort of thing, that everybody talks about aging, but it’s all focused on the whites, as opposed to indigenous blacks.

the various different cultures, that sort of thing. That’s actually part of the reason why I’m trying to reach into different cultures, just to understand how everybody views aging and that sort of thing. Which begs the question here in BC, because it’s a very multicultural province. Do you see different attitudes towards retirement, towards aging?

speaker-0 (29:09.11)
Yeah, you’ll see different attitudes in different countries, different cultures, different thoughts. But generally, when we look at whatever the scripture that you’re reading at your place of worship, whatever your community culture belief is, and even your family values, generally older people are valued. And if you read some of those texts, you’ll see that older people are revered. mean, if you look at, you know,

the the the Judeo-Christian belief, the first person in the Bible to get a responsible role, the most responsible person was Noah and he was the oldest person alive at the time. I don’t think that’s by accident. And look at other other writings where where we see seniors being valued in whatever culture it is. It’s really important. So there are elders. The word elders has been used a lot in in Canada and by indigenous populations. And I really believe that elders are important and valued.

I can take your viewers to Canada place, to the convention center every year, the end of August, I get invited with a number, to watch thousands of elders parade through in a procession under the sails. And it’s the elders gathering, the provincial elders gathering, the elders from around the province, indigenous, and they’re wearing their traditional clothing, and they’re celebrating who they are. And what I also noticed was there’s a lot of gray hair.

And there’s also a lot of wrinkles you can see. So what I really admired about them, and I mentioned this when I had the microphone, was that that’s the first thing I noticed was how proud they are of who they are and that they’re not dying their hair. Nothing wrong with dying hair if you want it, but they’re not doing it because to look young. And they’re not doing something to their face to make the wrinkles go away. They’re owning who they are, which is so important, I think. And it makes all of us feel good because if we can’t express who we are as an older person, how does that impact us? So I think any culture

that celebrates aging, doesn’t make fun of it, acknowledges it and grants people who have reached those age that privilege of respect and being kind of the, perhaps even the head of the table kind of thing. I think that’s really what we should be doing is really focusing on age as being something to celebrate or something to fear.

speaker-1 (31:25.12)
So you’re focused on areas that are, in essence, tangible, physical in nature. Your health care, your housing, your transportation, your community support. Community support, not necessarily so physical. But are you doing anything with regards to changing the way general society views elders and seniors?

speaker-0 (31:49.494)
Absolutely. so we, we, I’ve always wondered why everyone doesn’t value seniors. And when I started looking at things like the greeting cards that you can buy for people’s birthdays at around 30, if you go to the card shop around 30 years of age, they change and they get worse as the decades go on. And I can’t believe we’re actually allowed to sell them because if it was about something else other than age, they would be.

And then of course, there’s, you know, in the next aisle over there, there’s a whole section there where anti-aging, but on the bottle of the thing that you’re gonna buy, it doesn’t tell you it won’t change your birth year. You’re still gonna have, you’re still gonna be the same age. And so what we’ve done is looked at this issue of ageism, which is a serious issue. So ageism is the discrimination, prejudice, and treatment of people based on the year they were born.

And it affects young people also as it does older people. In fact, younger people report more age discrimination in the workplace and older adults. But I wanted to find out what British Columbians thought about this. So we did a survey in the fall of 2024. We heard from 9,000 seniors, over 9,000 seniors. We issued a report in March of 2025. And of the 9,000 plus people who responded, 84 % said ageism is an issue.

Then we wanted to find out if they’ve experienced it. So of the total people who responded to the survey, 54 % said they’ve experienced ageism. And then we asked for them to tell us their story. So it could be going to your doctor’s office and complaining about something. And the doctor would say, that’s just a sign of growing old. And we’re kind of thought, well, that’s just how my body is being. And I should accept that. Well, you know, and

If you talk to anyone who’s going through or gone through menopause, they will tell you the treatment that they were offered or weren’t offered. And I think it’s a good time that we’re living in where for low income women, they’re gonna have horrible prison therapy covered now by the provincial government. And so you think about, so that’s both sexism and ageism, but then you go forward and you think about access to diagnostic services. Should a 90 year old not be granted access to the same

speaker-0 (34:09.55)
diagnostic services as a younger person. For example, a colonoscopy, it takes about 10 years for that pulp to turn into cancer. Well, who wants to live to be 100? Johnny Carson asked George Burns that on the Tonight Show when George Burns was 99. And George Burns was asked by Johnny and George Burns took a moment to think about it, took a drag from his cigar. And he said, Johnny,

speaker-1 (34:37.784)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (34:39.726)
You know who’d want to live to be 100? Somebody who’s 99. So I think if we just embrace aging, celebrate it, so it could be in the medical system, it could also be in the retail business. you go, one of the persons who reported, it sounds subtle, but it wears on you after a while. So a person walks into a fashion store that caters to a younger demographic, and the woman had gray hair.

and maybe some wrinkles. I don’t know much more about her, but she was invisible to the people who worked there. But meanwhile, people behind her that walked in, the two younger people got greeted right away. So the woman walked around for 10 minutes, no one even acknowledged that she was there. She left, she felt devalued, invisible, not appreciated at all, not recognized. And then she went to another store and bought gift cards for her granddaughters for their Christmas present. So it happens all around us and…

you’ll hear people talk about having a tough time getting work at past 60. And so we’ve got to make sure that age discrimination is ruled out. We’ve got to make sure that people are treated fairly. But one other example in the workplace is that if you’re working for most governments and you’re publicly funded, if you will, you could be a nurse, paramedic, you be delivering the mail, be working for a city hall.

At 65, you may likely lose some benefits. So you might no longer get long-term disability, group life insurance, and things like accidental death and dismemberment. And then at 71, if you’re lucky enough to be in a pension, public pension, which those people working for the public service are very lucky to have, at 71, it stops. You no longer can contribute to it, nor does your employer pay it. So the two people we had here in their mid-70s that were working, they were less expensive than the person in the cubicle next to them.

But because of age, we’re allowed to discriminate against them that way. But if they were of a different gender, then there’d be pay equity. But there’s no such thing as equity for people based on the year they were born. So we have a lot of work to do, I think, tangibly around attitudes towards older adults. And we have to rethink the workplace. We’ve got to rethink our communities where we live. We’ve got to rethink health care and access to health care.

speaker-0 (37:04.012)
I think we really got to do some tough conversations and tough thinking about what it’s going to look like as we grow older. Because all this, we’re all seniors in the making. So by the age just at a younger age, all you’re doing is discriminating against your future self.

speaker-1 (37:18.806)
Yeah, no, the entire population is getting older. So just the fact that that’s happening and anyway, so that’s going to have to go into the workplace. Talk to me about housing because I never thought about the housing side of things and how that impacts seniors, older people. Now, yes, I know I have trouble going up and down stairs right now, but

Public policy versus market demand?

speaker-0 (37:51.726)
Yeah, so it’s really interesting. for seniors who are low income, there’s two things government does, in particular, renters. So we know that 20 % of seniors are renters in British Columbia. And there’s two government programs. One is a affordable housing program. The other is a rent subsidy for low income renters. So the past two years, so in 2024, 2025, provincial budgets, the Safer program, which is the rent subsidy program for low income renters,

It was improved and the average subsidy I believe is something like $300 now. They increased the the income threshold and also the rent calculation. So more and more people are getting more more money for this, which is fair because we call it core housing needs. Only 30 % of your income should be spent on rent. So that’s improved. There’s still ways to go. The money is in the budget allocated to this program. It’s not overly subscribed, which is unfortunate.

So that’s one thing governance done, which has been an improvement. So we can give them check marks for that. On the other side of affordable housing, we’re just not building enough. We built 5 % more housing stock for subsidized units in the past six years. But at the same time, there’s 5 % more people who need the housing. So when we look at the people who are on the wait list currently, when we last checked, it was in a March report for last year, we said there was

13,000 people in our province waiting for subsidized housing and only 7 % got a space. These are people who need housing and didn’t get it because we’re not investing enough in that infrastructure. So we need subsidized housing and we also need the market rent subsidies for low-income renters. The other thing that’s changed recently is the property tax deferment program which many seniors use because they’re cash poor but house rich. So if you’re over 55 in the province of BC

you are allowed to defer your property tax. And we’ve encouraged seniors to do this from our office. Previously, the government was subsidizing the program. Now, essentially, the people deferring the property tax will be subsidizing the program themselves because they’ve jacked up the percentage of interest that you’re paying on the loan. So it’s an individual loan each year. Let’s say your property tax is, $6,000. can…

speaker-0 (40:15.704)
put that expense down the road, the government charges you interest on it, it’s less favorable terms, but it’s still, if you compare it to the value of your home increasing and if you compare it to other ways that you put money in your pocket right now, it’s probably the best way to do it because you don’t pay that money until you actually sell your house.

speaker-1 (40:34.892)
So it sounds almost like the seniors that are looking for or need help with the housing side of things are more on the margins are at issue right now.

speaker-0 (40:49.582)
100%. And there’s a recent case in Cook Street Village area of Victoria, which is the next part of town. But a gentleman was living there. It’s kind of a intersection of all these different issues coming into one play where he wasn’t using digital technology. And the landlord had all the tenants in that building go on the automatic billing online.

And he wasn’t using online. just decided for whatever reason he wasn’t going to use anything online. And he, had a friend who was helping him manage this and the friend, guess, missed the emails where his, his landlord said, we’re going to increase your rent. think it was $25 per month. So after three months, the landlord had the right under the provincial resident, your tendency act to evict the senior. And it made the news. We made a comment about it. We hope the landlord would do the right thing and let him stay. And in fact, they did.

the senior apologized, which is unfortunate he had to apologize, but he apologized for going public about it. he stayed, yeah, he stayed in the, in his place. And so, so that’s really what happens. And I think he was paying under a thousand dollars a month, something like that. So for him to be a rent evicted essentially, or evicted, and to try to find accommodation at that same price would be catastrophic.

accommodation and the precarious housing we hear more and more about this is seniors on the verge of homelessness. There are seniors. I thought it was the when I first got this job I heard a senior tell me she was living in a car. I thought that was a one-off. There’s seniors in the West End of Vancouver and other parts of the province living in cars. I’m guessing it’s not just BC. But you have people living in cars. You have people who are who I met with one person when I first started here. He was a lovely person.

And he was lucky enough to have friends and he was coach surfing. That was his home. So many people are at risk of homelessness. There are some good services available, senior services society. Alice is a CEO. They do great work. They’re helping people find housing. They have a hundred percent success rate. But when we think about homelessness, we don’t really think about seniors, but the majority of people experiencing homelessness for the first time are over the age of 55 in DC.

speaker-0 (43:10.346)
And the shelters, can only think of one in the lower mainland in Abbotsford that actually is purpose built for seniors. So you think about if you have mobility challenges, chronic health conditions, and you’re trying to get off a mattress on the floor, most of us would have a tough time doing that. Then you’re a senior on top of that and you’ve maybe been living on the streets for a while. So there’s some really tough situation going on for seniors who are experiencing homelessness. And we have lots of work to do around the income supports.

and making sure seniors have a safe place to live. what they also need if they’re living in subsidized housing is they need services like a social worker, those social supports to help them navigate and find the services they need. could be something as simple as filing your taxes. If you don’t file your income tax, that could be a reason why you no longer could stay where you are.

speaker-1 (44:03.31)
Sorry, you’re getting me thinking about things that I hadn’t thought about. I understand from the housing point of view. Like I bought this house in 2001 for, what was it, 354,000 Canadian for anybody not in Canada listening. Right now I could probably turn around and sell it for 1.9 million Canadian. But the problem is then I still have to move into another place that’s going to be a comparable dollar.

House rich, cash poor, but I have to pay my property tax based on the value of the house. And the fact that, like my dad was smart when he retired, he was forced into retirement. He used to be a VP of strategy for the local college system. And when he was put into retirement, he had his pension indexed. So that is something that…

you really never hear about nowadays is indexing of pensions versus something else. Last question, and then we’re getting close to the end of the interview. I’m finding a lot of politicians are getting up there in age.

You and I both have our gray hairs to show our wisdom. Are you seeing a shift in the understanding of aging and seniors within politicians or are they still very, I’ll use the term tactical in the way they’re going about doing things?

speaker-0 (45:38.838)
Yeah, so I’ll give answer this way. When every budget that I’ve ever seen, every time I hear someone talk a politician or anyone talk who has kind of that presence in the media or in public life, I’m always curious how they talk about older adults. So I look at things like our provincial budget, where seniors in some years in past, they’ve been front and center. And there’s programs that have been enhanced and built for seniors. Other times,

like this year, many things were stayed the same, which is good, but there were some things that were lessened, which wasn’t good. And when you think about aging, most of us have somebody in our lives that are over 65. And we have to make sure that we’re making the best decisions and allocating resources where the population is growing. We know that currently in BC, there’s one in five British Columbians over 65.

in a decade from now, it’ll be one in four, 25%. We have to make the investment now is time to build the things that we need to change our attitudes and to fund senior services. And I think if we wanna look to other jurisdictions, how they’re doing things and those societies that are already advanced in their age, we can think about places like Japan and see how they’re doing in fairing and making sure that we emulate those jurisdictions that have an older population because

I think if we don’t, it’s to our own peril. And as I mentioned earlier, we one day too will be old. And I think none of us really want to experience precarious housing. We want to have access to healthcare. We want to have social connections so we’re not lonely. And I think now’s time for us to ensure it’s there. one thing I would just encourage your viewers to do is to think about their own future. It’s not just government’s responsibility. Although they have a major responsibility to this.

but it’s all responsibility to plan for the future. So think about your own financial health, your own health, what are you doing for your, how are you eating, how are you sleeping, how are you exercising, all things that we know about, but sometimes we don’t think we have to do. And then you think about your social connections and your housing. Can you age a place where you are? Do you have to leave one day? So having really a life plan as you age is critically important. So when you get that letter in the mail at 80 saying you should go check,

speaker-0 (48:03.106)
and make sure you’re fit to drive, that you’re prepared, that one day you might not be driving, how are you gonna get around? So we have to think about all these eventualities and can we stay in our house if we can’t afford the property tax, we can’t afford cost of living. So plan ahead, was probably my big advice and the government as much as they can control things, they won’t always be able to fill in the gaps for everybody. So we’ve got to make sure that…

those people who need those services have them when they’re there and that we’re doing the best ourselves take responsibility for our own future.

speaker-1 (48:37.646)
Perfect.

That’s a nice way to end the interview with that piece of advice. Dan, thank you very much for everybody that’s watching. I will put a description of Dan and his office in the description of this video, as well as a link to the website where you can find out more. But I also take a look around to your local, your regional governments to see whether there’s a senior’s advocate in those areas. It sounds like it’s a growing position within various levels of

of government. I hope to see it happen more and more. Dan, thank you very much.

speaker-0 (49:15.297)
Thank you.