Elder Care Task Force

The Canadian Co-op Association's National Task Force on Co-op Elder Care, headed by John Restakis of BCCA, explored the conditions and prospects for the development of co-op elder care services in Canada. The resulting report, Co-op Elder Care in Canada, greatly expands the knowledge concerning the relevance of co-operative models to this increasingly urgent area of social care.

A number of factors have converged to make such a research project timely within the Canadian context:

1. The first is the continuing retreat of governments at both the federal and provincial levels from the provision of major social assistance programs.
2. The second factor has been the changing demographics of Canadian society. As the baby boomers approach retirement age, the percentage of seniors in the general population has already reached unprecedented levels.
3. The third factor is the changing expectations of the public as regards social care. Gone are the days when people were content to receive a one-size-fits-all approach to social services that are designed and controlled by state bureaucracies.

The co-op movement is ideally situated to respond to these issues in a manner that mobilizes the ideas, experience, skills, and resources of the sector to fashion a response that addresses elder care through the application of co-operative models.
The knowledge gained by the specialized focus on co-operative models will contribute to the range of elder care strategies being considered by policy makers, academics, co-op specialists, community service groups, and elder care service organizations.

The research will complement existing efforts by BCCA and other organizations to understand the operations of social co-ops as alternative delivery systems for social care in Canada.

More specifically, the research will provide the first opportunity to apply the experience of co-op models of elder care to service needs within the Canadian context, highlighting the specific models, opportunities, challenges, and resources required to implement co-op models to elder care issues in this country.

The Task Force Recommendations, on page 23 of the report were unanimously adopted by the Canadian Co-operative Association membership at its 2008 AGM.