Meeting shows this is no city for old men

And so to a recent meeting, there to listen to a handful of smart people talk about the notion of age-friendly communities; me, aging as we speak.

But if there were just a few of us older people in the audience, that is as it should be; after all, it is the young who must clean up the mess we have made.

Is it possible to age in place? My facetious answer: yes, if you are rich.

The first of the speakers was a deputy minister of seniors’ affairs who seemed a nice person, and she talked a lot about goals and, gosh, if this were hockey we’d really be onto something.

Olha Dobuh spoke next. She is from Peel Public Health. She ob- served that Peel Region has some 40,000 seniors now, but that number will rise to an anticipated 180,000 in the near-ish future, and half of these will be immigrants.

She said that has implications: for example, South Asians have a tendency to diabetes. I suspect that tendency is enhanced by living here, eating as we do in North America; nevertheless, it is a specific issue which needs to be addressed.

She spoke of the need for the nearness of services, and I wanted to leap up from my seat and invite her to walk with me in my beloved Parkdale, where I am a 10-minute walk from a pork chop, a stamp, a loaf of bread and painkillers; I also have the King car, the Queen car, the Dundas car and the College car at my disposal.

Is there a way to beef up density in the suburbs, and to decrease the importance of the car? That’s a serious question.

Ms. Dobuh also said that immigrants prefer to live close to their families. That is how we used to live here. Is the future in our past?

But when she talked about affordable housing, I began to gnash my teeth because we can solve this — and all of our other problems — if we have the wit to plan smartly, and the will to spend our money wisely. You may say I’m a dreamer. Glenn Miller spoke next. He is a presence at the Canadian Urban Institute, the group that organized the conference, and if I ran this town I’d hire him as a plenipotentiary, adjacent to the planning department.

Or maybe he’s better off where he is

He said that by 2041, there will be some 1.3 million Canadians over the age of 85. I will be 93 then, if I last that long.

He said older people ought to be able to get what they need on a daily basis, which can be difficult for those who do not drive. Here, I thought of home delivery, as in the old days, which is how we got our bread, our milk and the horse manure for our roses. Was it really so long ago? He also said something particularly observant — only 4 per cent of men aged 65-74 use public transit, but men tend to use public transit in their old age if they used it when they were younger. We know what we must do. I merely add this, um, wrinkle: it is difficult to carry groceries home on public transit; doubly difficult in winter.

Frank Giannone spoke next. He has, he says, built housing in which older people can live comfortably and affordably, but he noted that Canada does not spend as much as the U.S. on affordable seniors’ housing. I howl in indignation.

When will we have a national housing policy? I answer that question with another: When is the next election? The last speaker, Harry Kitchen, is an esteemed economist; he mused about the fairness of age-based seniors’ discounts, noting that the cost of such discounts are borne by the shrinking middle class. Is that fair? Should age be the determinant, or should it be income? He also talked about the smart use of municipal revenue tools. I merely observe that such talk is anathema in these parts. Can we age in place? I walked home. Joe Fiorito appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. jfiorito@thestar.ca