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Canada, like all industrialized countries, is experiencing an aging population. Unlike most industrialized countries, however, Canada is doing almost nothing to prepare for the implications of an older population, and in some cases, is moving in the wrong direction.

There’s ample evidence that Canadians are living longer. According to Statistics Canada, life expectancy in 2011 was 81.7 years of age compared to just 57.1 years of age in 1921. The combination of Canadians living longer with the population bulge of the baby boom generation means that seniors are on track to represent 25 per cent of the Canadian population by roughly mid-century compared to slightly less than 15 per cent in 2010.

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As a recent study pointed out, the aging of our population will place enormous strains on government finances. First, several government programs that are sensitive to demographics will experience significant cost pressures. For instance, Old Age Security (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) are two income-transfer programs supporting seniors. The expectation is that the cost of these programs will increase by 47 per cent between 2017 and 2047 based on a larger share of the population being eligible for such programs.