A POLITICAL MINEFIELD

      WHAT'S THAT ON THE HORIZON?--I'm starting to feel a little jittery, even alarmed. Something ominous is looming. I mean, they keep mentioning me in the news, and not in a very good light at that.
     Most people can agree that one naturally will feel nervous if one isn't used to that sort of thing.
     But I must be clear on this. I do not mean they're talking about me specifically, or personally, or by name. No, that would be far-fetched. What I mean is, they're talking about me in a general way. Yet, it's still about me, and it's about a whole lot of other people, too, people like me, millions of 'em.
     What they're doing in these news reports, and commentaries, is repeating continued harping by various forms of economic researchers, experts, "think" tanks, and officialdom on what seems to be a huge concern for them: The Greying of The Population.
     For example: Last February the parliamentary budget watchdog in Ottawa, Kevin Page, bluntly warned that the fast growing numbers of the greying will soon put a big strain on our governmental finances, both federal and provincial. This theme wasn't especially new then, but it has been increasingly sung by quite a few others since. It seems to have become a popular tune, and I don't think it's a very pretty one.
     For example: It took on greater import when it was mentioned last spring in the Speech from Throne opening parliament. This was direct from the government, not just a parliamentary officer, with the Harper government noting that this demographic shift--the greying population--would "challenge the sustainability of our social programs. . ."
     For example: No end of columnists and editorialists have found it handy grist for their mills. One even went to the extent of pointing out that the problem was people were living longer and the country wasn't having enough babies. I guess.
     And so it goes on and on, and on.
     In fact, this "greying obsession" in the news looks to me to be so intense, so continuous, that one might think there's a subterranean public relations campaign being conducted with it--you know, to more or less condition the public mind, soften us up, for some sort of coming bad news for the grey and greying crowd.

     IT JUST SO HAPPENS that I am one of the greying, so you can see my deep interest in the matter. (Other "greyers," and up-and-coming greyers, too, ought to have a similar interest. Not to mention worries.)
     To be exact, I should say that I used to be grey. But I have graduated, in a sense, by turning white, in the areas of my head that still carry hair. This makes no difference, though, in my status. Once you join the big club of the greying, you're pretty well in it for the rest of your life.
     Thus, every time I read one of these "greying" yarns, or hear them on the radio or see them on TV, I get a faintly startled feeling, and I think, gosh, what are they saying, that I'm becoming a burden on this great nation of ours, on its pension plans, on its health care insurance plans, and so on? How dare I get older? How dare I stay alive? How thoughtless of me! But, what to do, what to do. . .?

     THEN I GET A BIT INDIGNANT, and I say to myself, By George, we grey and white-haired ones have got to do something about this. We've got to smoke out those researchers, those experts, the "think" tankers, officials and, yes, those politicians, and demand that they let us in on their plans for us. We have to tell them we need some definition here, get them to state precisely where they're going with this, open up on what they may be proposing in any of their non-public studies and discussions.
     All of which is why I'm writing this entry to my blog.
     The growing numbers of the aforementioned complainers-about-greying are concentrating their attention on the financial and economic impact of this accelerating population-greying.  They see it now, in the near future, and well into the long-term future, as turning into an increasingly expensive crisis, overstraining budgets, even causing economic stagnation, if not collapse.
     Horrors, what a scenario!
     It's possible, I suppose, that some of these people might say to a person like me: "Why are you trying to make such a big deal of this now? We've known about this phenomenon for a long time, we've been thinking about it, studying it. What's so new? We'll meet the challenge, we assure you. We believe our present financial approach and planning will handle the problem well into the future. At least we think it will. Trust us."

     MY ANSWER TO THAT IS: "Haven't you been listening to me? What is new is that we are hearing more and more about it. Near-panic about it is accelerating. So I think it's time you gave us Canadians the real goods on how you're thinking about dealing with the problem. Because, you see, our experience sometimes has been a trifle negative when placing too much trust in politicians."
     One official body, the Public Health Agency of Canada, which advises the minister of health (the cabinet minister responsible for seniors), and is responsible for public health in Canada, has attached a qualifier to the prospects for keeping the present seniors programs' financing scheme going, saying it can be done "assuming continuation of existing economic and expenditure trends."
     That, my friends, is one very big qualification. (I can't find a date for that statement, by the way, but I would think the website pages of that agency don't change a lot or swiftly, so possibly it was there before the financial crisis and recession that began in '08. If so, then. . . ?)
     At the same time, we have a record of statements made by the federal finance minister warning, not so long ago, that the rapidly growing costs of health care coverage must be contained. I don't know that that suggests any very happy prospect for seniors.

     THROUGH MY DILIGENT INQUIRIES into this subject, I have even seen one report in which a sociologist mentioned the word "euthanasia," suggesting it could come into vogue under the economic pressures of cutbacks in health care, heavily used by seniors.
     So you can see it's easy to have misgivings about efforts to calm down anyone with concerns over policies that might arise from the "greying crisis."
     The grey (and white) ones must pay attention, because our politicians sometimes set great store in what they hear from the economist-statistician-researcher-bureaucrat-sociologist sets, and have been known to go along with them. Such diligent people are handy for providing justification for whatever politicians might decide to do. But I do believe our pensions, our health care, and probably other areas of seniors support, such as housing policy, can be directly affected by this.

     SHADES OF JONATHAN SWIFT--As I have reflected on this whole business of "the greying problem" I, for some strange reason, have found myself recalling the brilliant essay by Jonathan Swift, some 280 years ago, with respect to Ireland's poverty, and the reluctance of the well-off to contribute to its relief. How could that be relevant to our subject? Well, just for fun, let's look at his satirical gem.
     The clergyman and writer, who was born in Ireland of English parents, entitled his essay, "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to their Parents or Country."
     Swift wrote: "I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a  young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled, and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout."

     TEN SHILLINGS PER CHILD CARCASS--Dr. Swift, who was Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, also declared:
     "I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon all cottagers, laborers, and four-fifth of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags included, and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child. . . "
     Now if, just for the sake of devilment, we were to switch the dial from "children" to "senior citizens," well, there you might have a solution to the "greying problem" in Canada. Instead of babies, which the experts now seem to feel we'll need to produce in goodly numbers to bolster a future work force burdened by grey ones, well, maybe we could accomplish much by having nutritional servings of oldsters.
     All, right, I know--Dean Swift's proposal was "only" a satire. But you have to remember that experts and bureaucrats can take some things awfully seriously and . . . well, perhaps I should say no more. Actually, no, I deny it, they'd never come up with anything like that, not even in jest.
     Still, I think it will be very useful in the public interest for those hard-eyed, terribly serious economists-statisticians-bureaucrats-politicians-think tankers-et al to take warning:
     We seniors will be no pushovers for whatever unpleasant plans you may plot to solve this perceived "greying burden."

     NO, SIR, WE'LL BE ON WATCH, we'll man (and woman) the ramparts, we'll dig in, we'll give you the biggest battle of your misspent lives if you come up with the wrong policies!
     And be further warned:
     Although a few of us seniors definitely are a little on the plump side, lots of us are more on what might be called the husky and muscular side--and considerable numbers of us are much leaner. But whatever our girth, large or small, we all have especially tough hides and sinews. We would, in brief, make extremely difficult chewing, fricasseed or not.
     At the end of the day, though, one thing I'm sure of is this: Any politician who tries to mess with senior voters and their well-established, their well-justified rights is going to come down with a severe case of electoral indigestion. You can bet on that.
     Seniors--to the barricades!