SENIORS CATCHING UP: CENSUS.

OTTAWA • Paul Kershaw loves his 72-year-old mother and his 101-year-old grandmother.

But they represent a growing challenge for the country, and Kershaw, 42, will be counting on younger age groups to protect and support the services that seniors need as Canada bears witness to a historic greying of its population.

The next batch of numbers from the 2016 census, due Wednesday, is expected to show that thanks to aging baby boomers, there are as many seniors in Canada as young people, if not more — for the first time in Canadian history.

There is also likely to be a jump in the number of centenarians, including Kershaw’s grandmother, showcasing another trend the age and sex data from Statistics Canada will confirm: Canadians are not only getting older, but also living longer.

Wednesday’s release ought to trigger a national discussion about the challenges Canada faces in the coming years, said Kershaw, an associate professor in the school of population and public health at the University of British Columbia.

Those include how best to serve the growing needs of the elderly, how to make sure the younger generations don’t get swamped in the wake of the boomers and how far government policy should go when it comes to keeping people in the workforce.

Federal spending on seniors’ benefits is expected to climb from $51.1 billion this fiscal year to $63.7 billion by 2022 — a $12.6-billion increase.