B.C’s changing demographics:

British Columbia has the healthiest population of all provinces and territories in Canada.
It also has the highest life expectancy, behind only two of Canada’s international peers – Switzerland and Japan. British Columbians’ long lifespans are reflected in figures from Statistics Canada, which show that between 2013 and 2016, the number of people over 65 in B.C. increased to 850,424 from 752,128 – a 13% rise in just three years. The number of seniors in the province is increasing not just in real terms, but as a percentage of the population as well- to 17.9% in 2016 from 16.4% in 2013.

B.C.’s aging population presents a wide range of new considerations for public policy, including how to achieve the best possible outcomes in health care, security, safety, and lifetime learning. The demographic shift we’re already witnessing will require careful planning at all levels of government and across society more generally.

One major issue is how a growing population of seniors can effectively and safely manage their finances and protect themselves from fraud and financial abuse.

As people age, faculties can start to diminish, and the ability to focus sharply changes with time and health. A recent study by the Centre for Retirement Research at Boston College found that “declining cognition, a common occurrence among individuals in their 80s, is associated with a significant decline in financial literacy.” The study also found that “large declines in cognition and financial literacy have little effect on an elderly individual’s confidence in their financial knowledge, and essentially no effect on their confidence in managing their finances,” While it’s only natural for people to exaggerate their strengths and downplay their weaknesses, there may be negative consequences to this when it comes to cognition and financial literacy.

Along with the possibility of cognitive decline, it’s also more likely for seniors than younger people to face some form of reduction in mobility, which may prevent them from accessing in-person financial services on their own.

These factors- an aging population, an increased likelihood of reduced physical ability, evidence of a decline in financial literacy in later life and no loss of confidence among seniors in being able to manage their finances- significantly increase the risk of financial abuse.

A Vancity survey, conducted by the Mustel Group of people aged 65 or older in Metro Vancouver and the Capital Regional District reveals that:

1. More than one-third (35 %) of seniors who experience at least one type of financial abuse choose not to tell anyone.
2. One-fifth (21 %) of seniors who experienced financial abuse and did not report it said it was because they didn’t know who to tell.

Of those respondents who say they did not report incidences of abuse 15 % were embarrassed by the situation, and 10% feared it would make the situation worse or result in retaliation.

More than 80% of survey respondents could not name any support services available for seniors who may be victims of financial abuse.

There is a large gap between unprompted reports of financial abuse (3%) and reported abuse when respondents are presented with specific scenarios (36%), indicating that many seniors may not understand how they may be victims. A Canadian national study revealed that in situations of financial abuse the perpetrator was an adult child or graduated in 37% on incidents.

Multiple studies indicate that seniors are often afraid to report abuse, particularly if they are living with their abuser and/or are dependent on them for help with financial or other day-to-day matters.

Senior First BC indicates there were 4,684 incidences of financial abuse reported to the Seniors Abuse and Information Line from 2013 to 2017. The top ten forms of financial abuse were:

Exploiting affected adult (for shelter or money)

• Pressuring (to lend, give a gift, or change will)
• Misuse of the power of attorney
• Real estate
• Questionable business transaction
• Misuse of bank or credit card
• Misuse of a joint bank account
• Theft
• Cashing pension or other cheques without authorization
• Skimming

Recommendations in the Vancity report include helping seniors manage their finances securely, financial institutions providing support specifically designed for senior members/customers and governments providing more funding for seniors organizations that combat abuse.

Elder abuse can include:

Acts of violence, such as hitting, beating, pushing, shoving, shaking, slapping, kicking, pinching, choking, or burning. The inappropriate use of medicines or physical restraints, force-feeding, and physical punishment of any kind also are examples of physical abuse.

Forced sexual contact or sexual contact with any person incapable of giving consent. It includes unwanted touching and all kinds of sexual assault or battery, such as rape, sodomy, forced nudity, and sexually explicit photography.

Emotional or psychological abuse, such as name-calling, insults, threats, intimidation, humiliation, and harassment. Treating an older person like a baby, giving an older person the “silent treatment,” and isolating him or her from family, friends, or regular activities are examples of emotional or psychological abuse.

Neglect such as failing to provide an older person with food, clothing, personal shelter, or other essentials, such as medical care or medicines. Neglect can also include failing to pay nursing home or assisted-living facility costs for an older person if you have a legal responsibility to do so.

Abandonment or desertion of an older person by a person who has the physical or legal responsibility for providing care.

Illegal or improper use of an older person’s funds, property, or assets. This includes forging an older person’s signature, stealing money, or possessions, or tricking an older person into signing documents that transfer funds, property, or assets.

RISK FACTORS for elder abuse:
Abuse of elders is a complex problem with many contributing factors. Risk factors include:

Domestic violence carried over into the elder years. A substantial number of elder abuse cases are abuse by a spouse.

Personal problems of caregivers. People who abuse older adults (particularly the adult children) are often dependent on the older person for financial help and other support. This is often due to personal problems such as mental illness, or other dysfunctional personality traits. The risk of elder abuse seems highest when these adult children live with the older person.

Social isolation. Caregivers and family members who live with an older person have the opportunity to abuse and often attempt to isolate the older person from others to prevent the abuse from being discovered.

SIGNS OF ELDER ABUSE: Signs and symptoms of elder abuse vary widely depending on the type of abuse.

Signs an older person is the victim of acts of violence may include:

• Bruises, black eyes, welts, lacerations, rope marks, cuts, punctures, or untreated injuries in stages of healing.
• Broken bones including the skull.
• Sprains, dislocations, or internal injuries,
• Broken eyeglasses or dentures.
• Signs of being restrained.
• Laboratory reports of overdose or underuse of medicines. Reports from the older adult of being physically hurt.
• An older person’s sudden change in behaviour.
• A caregiver’s refusal to allow visitors to see an older person alone.
• Signs of possible sexual abuse-include bruises around the body etc. and reports from the older person of being sexually assaulted.
• Emotional or psychological abuse is possible if the older person appears emotionally upset or agitated; acts withdrawn or is non-communicative, non-responsive, or paranoid, or if he or she reports being verbally or emotionally mistreated.
• Abandonment includes the desertion of an older person at the hospital, nursing facility, shopping centre, or other public location.

Abuse also includes financial exploitation. Signs of this include sudden changes in a bank account or banking practice, such as unexplained withdrawals of large amounts of money, payments for unnecessary services, evidence of the older person’s signature being forged, and reports from the older person of financial exploitation.

HELP FOR ELDER ABUSE;

IF YOU ARE WORRIED THAT SOMEONE YOU KNOW MIGHT BE A VICTIM OF ELDER ABUSE, TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT WHAT TO LOOK FOR, WHAT THE RISKS ARE, AND WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP.

TO REPORT ELDER ABUSE OR TO GET HELP, CONTACT YOUR PROVINCIAL HEALTH AUTHORITY. EACH PROVINCE HAS RESOURCES TO HELP.

The beginning—a recap

The CGRA, established in 1986, helped families in distress following a separation or divorce, its purpose being to promote, support, and assist grandparents and their families in maintaining or re-establishing family ties and family stability. The CGRA was especially concerned with those ties between grandchildren and grandparents.

The family court system seemed to forget about the word family in its court decisions—despite its own functionality and name(!)— and frequently decided the children only needed one caregiving parent, although former Minister of Justice Mark MacGuigan coined the phrase “best interests of the child” in 1984 and stated: “A child must have maximum access to both parents.” Despite this, they made most of their decisions for sole custody, with the custodial parent most likely to be the mother. The non-custodial parent was usually the father, and this meant that the paternal grandparents often lost touch with their grandchildren.

Grandparent’s groups formed across Canada, the grandparent’s quilt was started by an Ontario grandmother with grandparents expressing their grief on the quilt squares. The grandparent’s quilt came to represent that very dark period in Canadian history of divorce and custody of children of divorce when children often lost access to one side of their parental lineage. Not only were grandparents and fathers the major losers in these decisions, so were the children.

When grandparents struggle to see their grandchildren without success, life becomes stressful and existing illnesses often hasten death. This has come to be seen as a form of elder abuse—we expect grandparents to be treated as fully participating family members and when this doesn’t occur—because of separation/divorce and less than civil resulting relations between the couple—grandparents and the children in question suffer, as well as the dad, who was usually the one left out. It has long been the CGRA’s purpose to battle this form of abuse and to effect change.

BC’s COUNCIL TO REDUCE ELDER ABUSE

BC’s Council to Reduce Elder Abuse notes that today’s older citizen’s experience serious abuse in many areas: emotionally, physically, and financially – at the hands of strangers, friends, acquaintances,  caregivers, and family members.

For this reason, I’m including information in Viewpoint on elder abuse of various kinds—as this affects many grandparents and their rights. Daphne

There are three separate categories of elder abuse:

Domestic elder abuse: usually takes place in the older adult’s home, or in the home of the caregiver. The abuser is often a relative, close friend, or paid companion.

Institutional abuse: refers to abuse that takes place in a residential home (nursing home), foster home, or assisted-living facility. The abuser has a financial or contractual obligation to care for the older adult.

Self-neglect is the behavior of an older adult that threatens his or her health or safety. Self-neglect Is present when an older adult refuses or fails to provide himself or herself with adequate food, water, clothing, shelter, personal hygiene, medicine, and safety precautions.

To be continued—

Note—if you experience (or know of anyone who may be) any form of elder abuse, Health Link BC is as close as your phone or web, day or night, every day of the year)

OUR CHILDREN ARE LIKE A GARDEN
Thank you to Lynn B. for permission to reprint this personal viewpoint.

When the new plants first sprout out of the ground, they don’t appear to require much tending. To grow, the little plants need plenty of water and sunshine. The soil in which they grow needs to be tilled, hoed, raked, and weeded.

In the beginning, mom and dad work the garden together, hoeing and raking.

Soon mom objects to the manner in which dad is raking. The work looks easy, and she feels that she could do a better job. She doesn’t need dad.

Her friends advise her that a publicly funded legal-aid lawyer is available to help her remove dad from the garden.

She and tax-funded lawyer go before a publicly funded judge who tells dad that he can only rake in the garden every second weekend (if he’s lucky).

This is made possible, because the publicly-funded Family Maintenance Enforcement Program will ensure that dad continues to pay for the garden plot even though he is not permitted to enter. So dad is now standing outside the barred gates of the garden.

Gramma and Grandpa have a certain amount of wisdom which comes with years of living. They know that gardening gets more difficult and that the little plants will require more diligent loving care as they grow. Gramma and Grampa also attempt to enter the garden to help water, weed and hoe.

Alas, publicly-funded Ministries of Women’s Equality, and also tax-funded women’s groups put political pressure on the tax-funded judge, and now the front gates of the garden are slammed shut on gramma and grampa as well.

By this time, the aunts, uncles,, and cousins have seen what has happened to dad, gramma and grampa, so they don’t even try to enter the locked gates …

As the plants grow larger – so do their roots expand and their needs increase.

Mom is now free to do all the gardening herself. But there is not enough hours in the day to rake, hoe, water, and weed, to till and fertilize. It’s exhausting, and she calls for help.

The long line of public-trough advisors stream in. They enter the garden through the back gate as the front gate remains firmly locked to keep out the pesky, loving, free, support that is standing there looking on with broken hearts. By this time the tender plants are experiencing serious root damage.

The high-price advisory gardeners spend the best part of their day hoeing and raking, but at  4 o’clock they leave for home shaking their heads at the sad situation.

The plants grow… but they are frail and shallow-rooted. A strong wind will blow them over.

Billions annually will be spent on social damage control.

Author: Lynn B. 1999

“When the media becomes more about ratings and power, we no longer have the news.”   Edward R. Murrow

“With so much media attention and public money spent on Nisga deals and ferry overruns, I can’t help but wonder why the government continues to ignore the scandalous trampling of human rights in this province today. The huge population of citizens known as the Non- Custodial Parent. This situation is more far-reaching, more critical, more cost consuming to the province. It gets no press, it is extremely harmful to the human spirit of those involved, and nothing is being done to change it.

“Custody and Access laws in British Columbia and indeed in all North America are in dire
need of revision. As couples separate for whatever reason, children’s needs are not being considered. While our justice system sits on their thumbs, children are suffering greatly from the irreparable loss of contact with the non-custodial parent (generally fathers but not always).

“Our system is such that it creates one winner and one loser. Both the parents love their children dearly, but only one parent wins. If the custodial parent decides they do not want interference and only financial support from the non-custodial parent they need only fire off some false allegations of physical or sexual abuse and the non-custodial parent is history. There are so many agencies in place to make that happen it can make your head spin. It is hurting a lot of good and decent people.

“God bless the parents who separate but put the needs of their children first. Unfortunately, when parents are not able to agree, there are many people who are making a good living
off of this discord. Social workers, psychologists, lawyers, etc. All consider themselves “experts” and all apply opinions and conclusions based on their own individual biases to matters in which they have no personal connection. This process is not in the best interests of the children.

“This travesty is happening nationwide on a frightening scale. Any of you who think you are the only ones (so you don’t fight it or talk about it) think again. Accusations such as these are becoming the “weapon of choice.” If you are a responsible and caring parent, it is a human rights issue. All of you non-custodial parents and grandparents who are suffering the loss of your children and grandchildren, join, or form a group. Together we must make the system change.”