The Canada-UK Foundation was lead sponsor of a meeting that took place in Cambridge between 22 and 24 November 2019 to make recommendations on the public policy implications of changing demographics and increasing longevity in Canada and the UK. Two of our Fellows, Bo Larsen and Karol Nowicki-Osuch, attended the meeting and acted as rapporteurs for break-out groups.

We are pleased to have received the following preliminary report and are looking forward to receiving the final report for policy recommendation in Spring 2020.

The meeting was one in a series started by the two Governments in the 1970s, bringing together a mix of about 50 Canadian and British politicians, officials, academics and businesspeople as well as those engaged in research at relevant institutes and associations. The meeting was chaired by Lord Filkin, who had led the 2013 House of Lords Select Committee on Public Services and Demographic Change. UK participants included Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies; Nigel Edwards, CEO of the Nuffield Trust; Lawrence Churchill, Chairman of the Pensions Policy Institute; and Anna Dixon, Director of the Centre for Ageing Better. The Canadian team included three Ontario Govt Ministers; the Hon Jean Charest, former premier of Quebec; Dr Howard Bergman, Chair of the Dept of Family Medicine at McGill University; Dr Sandy Buchman, President of the Canadian Medical Association; and Michael Nicin, Executive Director of the National Institute on Ageing.

The highlights of an opening  briefing day in St John’s College included presentations by Helena Herklots (Welsh Commissioner for Older People) and Dr Samir Sinha (architect of Ontario’s Seniors Strategy) on how the challenges and opportunities of a larger population of older people and longer life expectancy are being met in Wales and Ontario respectively. Participants also found time to visit St John’s Old Library, where the librarian had laid on a small exhibition of material related to Canada, as well as to attend a glorious evensong in St John’s Chapel. The Canadian High Commissioner, HE Janice Charette, spoke at a dinner that evening at Darwin College. George Freeman MP, Minister for Transport, had to drop out because of the election, but his speech was delivered in absentia.

The Colloquium itself, at the Møller Centre, looked in detail at such issues as demographic changes in both countries; the fiscal implication of an ageing population, and pensions policy; questions of health, including the prospects for ‘compressed morbidity’ (with shorter periods of ill health at the end of longer lives); Canadian experience with Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), which has been legal in Canada since 2016; safe, accessible, affordable housing; the implications of digital innovation for an older population – and many other related issues.

David Halpern, Chief Executive of the Behavioural Insights Team and a former Chief Analyst at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, spoke at a dinner at Trinity Hall about the need to give as much emphasis to the implementation of policy (including aspects of  behavioural psychology) as policy itself.

A Report with conclusions and recommendations will be issued in the spring. It was already clear at the end of the meeting, however, that one important outcome will have been to establish a virtual network of participants who agreed to carry forward work on a number of the priorities that had been identified.