Op-Eds
Published in the Telegraph Journal on October 2, 2010
By William Robson
Demographic change affects government budgets only gradually. In the mid-1990s, some advocates of a relaxed attitude toward aging-related increases in Canadian health-care costs compared them, not to an avalanche, but to a glacier. Intended to be soothing, the image is apt in a way those authors did not intend.
Even at a glacial pace, such a mass of ice grinds with tremendous force. The impacts of demographic change on Canada's fiscal landscape will be profound, and as we enter the second decade of the 21st century, they are no longer far away.
The net public debts of Canadian governments get keen attention. Figures on the unfunded…