Mark Adler - Time Bomb: How the Aging Population Will Transform Our World and Why We Must Act Before Its Too Late

On a business trip to Washington, D.C., in early 2007, I stopped in to visit a friend who had recently been elected to the United States House of Representatives. For anyone who has been to a Representatives office on Capitol Hill knows that the Members reception area is constantly filled with constituents, representatives of interest groups, or lobbyists all patiently awaiting their turn to meet with the Congressman. It was no different that time. While seated, I struck up a conversation with a very friendly elderly fellow sitting next to me.

When I told him I was from Toronto, well, his face lit up. He had just returned from a recent trip to the city. He went on glowingly about how much he loves the city. He especially liked how ethnocultural it was seeing people from all parts of the world. But, more importantly, Toronto held a very special place in his heart. The summer before, his granddaughter married a fellow from Canada and the two had their wedding ceremony just north of the city in an old church in Muskoka.

After the wedding, he said the couple moved to Ottawa where he was looking forward to visiting them once the weather warmed up a bit. I asked him what brought him to D.C. He told me he was there on behalf of a group of former United States Marines that were trying to get funding to help construct a recreation centre in the Congressmans district. The centre would be open to all but would be built in honour of all the military veterans, of which he included himself, who had served their country.

As we continued to chat, I began to wonder where he had done his service. He looked to be in his mid 70s, so I assumed he had served in the Korean War. A logical assumption given his very grandfatherly appearance. However, was I ever wrong. He was a veteran of the Vietnam War. Turns out he did three tours in Vietnam culminating in the Tet offensive in 1968. He was wounded in the leg in Saigon and was sent home.

As we continued to talk and get to know each other, I couldnt help but ask myself how this gray haired elderly looking fellow could possibly have served in Vietnam. Although just a child at the time of the Vietnam War, I remember the news reports so vividly. The American soldiers were all so young. Just kids. But then it occurred to me that those memories are from fifty years ago and I was no longer seven years old either. In the intervening half century we had all aged some. Then I remembered what a friend of mine, a few years my senior, had mentioned just about a week before I had this encounter in Washington Why does everyone my age look so old?

On the flight home that evening, I began to think about that encounter with my new friend and just how quickly the intervening years seem to go by. Then like the flash powder that would explode on the turn of the centuries photographers tray, I began to think about growing up in the late 1960s and 1970s. Just how many young people there were everywhere. A total culture of youth. Then I began to wonder what became of all those young people. All those who Don McLean described in his song, American Pie, released in 1971, as A generation lost in space . Or, more commonly known as, the baby boom generation.

This is how I became interested in demographics and population aging. Sparked by a discussion with a Vietnam veteran during a visit to my friends Congressional office in Washington, D.C A mere chance chat that led me to what has become a passion. The worlds shifting demographic structure and the implications it has on public policy, geopolitics, international affairs, trade policy, economics, finance and social policy. It has consumed my interest now for more than a decade.

Delving into every book, study and report I could get my hands on, I voraciously began to read everything on population aging. Naturally, it did not take long for me to see how our worlds rapidly shifting demographics would have implications that are far and wide. These changes will impact every aspect of our society. Whats more, policy makers will have some very difficult decisions to make over the forthcoming years.

As these decisions will involve the future character of our country, it will be of paramount importance to have as much input from the Canadian people as possible. The discussion of the issue that is contained within the following pages will hopefully spark that discussion. In addition, I have also established the National Organization on Aging and Longevity (NOAL). NOAL will provide thought leadership, strategic advice and innovative research to government and business on how to meet the challenges and opportunities posed by the worlds rapidly shifting demographics.

That chance meeting in Washington is what ultimately led me to write this book. It is not intended to be an exhaustive study of shifting demographic structures, but rather more of a macro overview of the forthcoming challenges confronting governments and business within the framework of rapid population aging. Additional books that delve more thoroughly into specific topics will be published over time. But in the meantime, the hope of this work and that of the National Organization on Aging and Longevity is to begin a national discussion on the challenges and opportunities posed by our rapidly changing age distribution.

Canada has the dubious distinction of possessing one of the most rapidly aging populations in the world. This provides Canada with a unique opportunity to stand as a model country on how to transition to an aged society without compromising our cherished values of equality of opportunity, social justice and common destiny. It is our responsibility to ensure that future generations of Canadians inherit a country that is at least as just as the one we inherited ourselves.