Let's talk about boomers

I was reading an article on the decaying infrastructure of Canadian cities and another thought struck me. In twenty year's time, my mother's generation will be in their mid-80's – that is, if the majority are even living at all. As a nation, we have only briefly talked about the ramifications of the aging boomer population in terms of government revenues, pensions, services, and healthcare related to the needs of the elderly, but when has the national discourse every verged out of this paradigm?

As a nation, we need to stop and think about what the dying baby boomers mean to the ordinary lives of younger Canadians. Even with a huge massive immigration push started yesterday, we cannot replace the aging and dying boomers with immigrants in any viable way. The largest available pool of potential immigrants comes from third world countries that possess limited literacy and/or skill sets. These immigrants are in no position to waltz into the country and pick up the boomer's slack – pants maybe, but certainly not the slack.

Our standard of living is set to undergo one of the most massive and unprecedented changes of history. Canada is a small country of approximately 33 million people. The boomer generation represents approximately 9.5 million Canadians. I cannot think of any country, in any period of history, where a top-heavy third of the population was elderly.

When the aging boomer population is discussed, everyone talks about the consequences to our social service safety nets and government debt financing but what about the economies outside of public service sector? For example, take construction/housing industry. In 10 to fifteen years time, when the boomers hit the seventies- to-early eighties mark, our cities and rural communities could potentially be hit with the mother of all housing gluts. If you think Canada has regional disparity now - wait until the boomers start dying off.

The average house price in Toronto has currently hit around $400,000 mark. Twenty years from today, it might be one of the few times, when a resident/owner of a home in a major Canadian city will see a marked depreciable value from the original purchase price of their home. No region throughout the country would potentially be immune from this glut/surplus since one cannot take one's house when one goes into the great beyond.

Of course, the Canadian construction/housing industry will probably undergo the lengthiest and longest depressions in it's history - from which it might never recover. Along for the ride are all the other industries and trades, which tap into and feed the construction/housing industry. Of course, going hand and hand with housing gut, will be depreciating property values, and with declining property values, means less revenue to run municipalities. Less revenue for municipalities means less tradition means of raising funds for things like education, hospitals, nursing homes and infrastructure repairs.

Then there is the fashion industry. Elderly people are generally not clotheshorses per say, and if they are not going to work, there is even less reason to dress relatively stylish or buy new clothes. The Elderly are not big eaters so let us just nix fashion, food and retail industries by at least a third of their current size. Of course, what will our auto industry look like when a potential third of all cars on the road are driven by retirees? While it is true health services, nursing homes, and the death services industry will be in big demand it is only for a very limited cycle, and then, the boom period for these industries will go bust as the population stabilizes once again.

So what is the solution? I simply have no idea but until we start to pay attention and think about the ramifications of when tomorrow cometh; we are sunk. Or in the words of the Who….I hope I die before I get old.