Today, the federal government and the government of British Columbia signed a bilateral agreement worth $733 million aimed at improving healthcare for the elderly in the major provinces of Western Canada.

The agreement was announced by Federal Health Minister Mark Holland and British Columbia Health Minister Adrian Dix this afternoon.

Under the agreement, the province of British Columbia will receive these funds over a five-year period ending in 2029.

These funds are supposed to “provide better access to home and community care and long-term care,” said the Federal Health Department in a statement.

“This funding follows the $1.2 billion bilateral agreement with the province (British Columbia) announced in October 2023,” the department added.

Half of the funds announced today will be allocated to the development of home and community healthcare. The aim is, in particular, to alleviate pressure on hospitals and their emergency departments.

The Health Minister of British Columbia welcomed this important bilateral agreement, noting that the country is facing an aging population phenomenon. He pointed, for example, to the city of Fort St. James in the middle of his province.

“In this city, the number of working-age residents will decrease in the next ten years, and the number of people over 75 years old will increase by 196%. This agreement (with the federal government) reflects this change in our community,” Minister Dix explained.

The head of the “Carrefour 50+” program (+Carrefour 50) in British Columbia, Johanne Dumas, supports this view.

“In the next five to ten years, there will be a huge number of people who will require care. This is largely due to cancers and other aging-related diseases, such as dementia for example,” says Dumas, whose association cares for people aged 50 and above through cultural, sports, and social activities.

Dumas had hoped that the federal support would be more generous.

“We will have to find more funds to help these people (the elderly),” Dumas adds, “after all, they are the ones who built Canada, they are the ones who built all this infrastructure that we can benefit from today. We must give them the opportunity to receive more dignity and move forward in as pleasant an environment as possible.”