Aging population and aging policies?

 Growing up, my grandparents lived in Fort McMurray, Alberta and I lived in Brandon Manitoba.  My grandparents would come to visit my family and I on some holidays and some special occasions.  I always thought of them as far away.  Later in their lives they moved to Manitoba to be closer to my family.  My grandparents moved to Neepawa, Manitoba.  Although I always thought of my grandparents as living quite the distance from me, it was extremely easy for them to move and become closer to my family.   When I was younger I was completely oblivious to the fact that my grandparents still lived in the same country as me and could come for a visit whenever they pleased easily enough.    

                For families that are separated by oceans or even more suffer the pain of missing their loved ones without the reassurance of a yearly holiday visits.  In fact, holiday visits are the least of their worries.   Families with grandparents who are trying to immigrate to Canada face many hardships, all of which have to be dealt with while separated from family.

A hot topic on immigration and older persons is whether or not the government should be allowing a higher number of people to immigrate into Canada per year to join their families.  The government thinks that allowing more people to immigrate to Canada would fix the current unemployment problems.  This will not fix the unemployment problems because the general population of older persons will not be able to take on a job in the work force.  This is not to say that every older person who immigrates to Canada will not work, but generally the older persons are not as likely to work as the younger population.  It is said that only “twenty percent of immigrants to Canada are primary economic immigrants, while the remaining applicants are their spouses and sponsored family members (Fletcher, 2001).”  If only twenty percent of the immigrant population are primary economic immigrants, this would not help the unemployment problem.

                Older persons go through the trouble of being denied entry into a country because of their ability to work.  The government is hesitant to bring in people who could potentially put on a strain on the social welfare system.  This is no excuse to exclude older persons.  If anything they may need extra assistance and available resources to help them through this tough change. 

                Although inviting more immigrants to the country would not fix the unemployment issue, I believe family is extremely important, especially in the developing years of a child’s life.  Reuniting families is something that the Canadian government can do for people that would mean the world.  Families need to depend on each other in times of transition and seeing as immigrating to a new country is a huge transition, we should be encouraging the government to keep families together.

                Serena

Works Cited

Fletcher, T. (2001). Proposed immigration curbs target elderly; Tories to cap number of parents, grandparents allowed entry to Canada. Canwest Digital Media.