To address the growing pressure of population aging on medical care and provincial budgets, provinces should lead the creation of a ‘Better Late Than Never’ Task Force — focused on fixing financing challenges left unaddressed for decades.

This Task Force must design a plan that protects universal access, safeguards seniors’ dignity, and restores our capacity to invest where health begins – without shifting more costs onto younger people, who are already paying more towards seniors’ care than previous generations did at the same age.

A fair financing plan must move beyond the simplistic diagnosis of a ‘doctor shortage’.

Canada has nearly three times as many physicians as in the 1970s. This 195% increase far exceeds population growth (76%) and the rise in demand from population aging (135%). The challenge is not simply workforce supply.

Getting to the structural reforms Canada really needs means confronting the underlying demographic arithmetic driving today’s cost pressures.

Today’s retirees worked hard and paid taxes, but the system did not ask them to pay enough during their working years to fully cover the cost of the care they now use. As the share of seniors grows, this gap becomes more visible.

Closing it will require answers to hard questions:

• How should we update revenue systems to reflect longer lives?
• How can contributions better match the cost of care over the life course?
• Who can contribute more right now?

This is not about blame — it’s about responsibility.

Without a plan, rising costs will continue to strain access, put universal care at risk, and force difficult trade-offs for younger generations who follow. With a plan, we have a chance to protect medical care while strengthening the broader systems that support health.