eldercare

Saturday May 16, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday May 16, 2020

Ontario Premier Doug Ford reveals his ‘famous’ cherry cheesecake recipe

Ontario Premier Doug Ford got his hand mixer out, put on some bright blue gloves and revealed his “famous” cherry cheesecake recipe in a video released on Friday morning.

January 17, 2019

“If I wasn’t premier, I’d open up a cheesecake factory,” the premier says at one point in the two-and-a-half-minute-long video dubbed “Cooking with Doug.”

Ford said he learned the recipe “years ago” from his mother, who learned it from her sister.

“When I was 10 years old I just had it kind of memorized,” he said with all of the ingredients laid out in front of him on a kitchen counter.

June 7, 2016

While making the recipe on camera wearing a “We’re all in this together” T-shirt, the premier says this is one of many “fun things you can do while you keep yourself isolated” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Stay safe, stay healthy,” he added.

The release of the premier’s “famous cheesecake recipe” comes after he boasted about it on Twitter and even during an official COVID-19 news conference held at Queen’s Park earlier in the week.

May 5, 2018

“I make the best cherry cheesecake ever,” he told reporters on Monday. “I do it from scratch. No recipe, I got it down pat.”

“You can tell I’ve eaten one too many cheesecakes. That’s my problem.”

Ford released a trailer for the recipe on Thursday night before publishing the full video the next morning.

The full video ends by the premier saying, “I haven’t had one of these in years. I haven’t made one in years, but I got to tell you I haven’t lost the touch.” (CTV) 

 

Thursday May 5, 2017

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 5, 2017

Canada now has more seniors than children, census reveals

For the first time in history, the percentage of seniors in the population (16.9 per cent) now exceeds the share of children (16.6 per cent), new census data reveals.

February 24, 2012

The increase in the proportion of seniors between 2011 and 2016—up from 14.8 per cent – is the largest since 1871, Statistics Canada said Wednesday as it took the wraps off the latest information gleaned from the 2016 census.

“This gap will continue to increase in the future, so basically we can say that there is no coming back. It’s long-lasting change,” said Laurent Martel, director of the demography division at Statistics Canada.

The statistics agency cites two factors for the changing demographics. The baby boomers – those born between 1946 and 1965 – are getting older. As well, increasing life expectancy combined with low fertility rates since the 1970s means seniors are an increasing proportion of Canada’s population.

Martel notes that other baby boomers are approaching retirement – the proportion of people between 55 and 64 reached a record high of 21 per cent in 2016 – meaning that an aging population will be the story of Canada’s population for decades to come.

“We know that other cohorts of boomers will follow in the coming years, meaning that population aging will remain fairly fast until 2031, when the last boomers will reach 65,” Martel said in an interview.

By 2061, these patterns will mean there could mean that Canada has 12 million seniors and fewer than 8 million children.

Still, Canada is the young kid on the block – Canada had a lower proportion of seniors than any other G7 country except the United States.

And the share of people aged 15 to 64 – 23.4 million Canadians, about 66.5 per cent of the total population, down from 68.5 per cent in 2011 – was also higher in Canada than in other countries. That means Canada still has a large working-age population, even though the growth rate in this age bracket between 2011 and 2016 is the lowest recorded between two censuses since 1851. (Toronto Star) 

Adapted from a cartoon originally drawn August 20, 2013.

 

Tuesday August 20, 2013

Tuesday August 20, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday August 20, 2013

National health care strategy needed for ‘silver tsunami’

Most Canadians think this country needs a national strategy for seniors health care, believing such a plan would help keep seniors in their homes as long as possible, according to a new poll released by the Canadian Medical Association.

The Ipsos Reid poll was released along with the association’s annual report card on health issues. It found that nine out of 10 Canadians feel that the entire health care system could be improved by keeping seniors at home as long as possible, to help lighten the load on hospitals and nursing homes.

It also revealed that only 37 per cent of Canadians have confidence in the ability of the current system to care for our aging population. As well, three-quarters of respondents said they were concerned for themselves about whether they would have access to high-quality health care in their retirement years.

Almost 80 per cent said they were concerned about having access to an acute care system, such as good quality hospital care, while almost an equal number worried about finding home care and long-term care.

Jane Meadus, a lawyer with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, says she’s not surprised the poll revealed so few Canadians feel confident about how they will be cared for in their senior years. “It shows there’s an anxiety about what’s happening now and what’s going to happen in the future about the availability and quality of the health care that we’re expecting for our seniors,” she told CTV’s Canada AM Monday.

Meadus says there are a lot of vulnerabilities in the current health care system when it comes to seniors, including a shortage of long-term care beds in most provinces and an insufficient system of home care. (Source: CTV News)