Ageism: How Can We Dramatically Improve Life for Older Adults?

The Empire Club Presents

Thomas G. Wellner President and CEO, Revera: Ageism: How Can We Dramatically Improve Life for Older Adults?

May 30, 2016

Welcome Address by Paul Fogolin, Vice President, Empire Club of Canada

Good afternoon. From One King West Hotel in downtown Toronto, welcome, to the continuation of the 112th season of the Empire Club of Canada. For those of you who are just joining us through either the webcast or podcast or on Rogers TV, welcome, to the meeting today. Before our distinguished speaker is introduced today, it gives me great pleasure to introduce our head table.

Head Table:

Distinguished Guest Speaker:

Thomas G. Wellner, President and CEO, Revera

Guests:

Mr. Colin Catherwood, Vice President of Investments, Welltower

Mr. Paul Fogolin, Vice President, Government Relations & Communications, Ontario Retirement Communities Association (ORCA); First Vice President, Empire Club of Canada

Ms. Hazel McCallion, Chief Elder Officer, Revera

Mr. Stephen Pincus, Partner, Goodmans LLP Ms. Michelle Roth, Partner, Goodmans LLP

Hon. Mario Sergio, Vice President of Investments, Welltower

Mr. Tim Smitheman, Manager, Government Affairs, Union Gas Limited

Dr. Cal Stiller, Revera Board Member, Professor Emeritus in Medicine at the University of Western Ontario, Chair of the Ontario Institute of Cancer Research; Director, MaRS Discovery District

Mr. Jeff Zabudsky, President and Vice Chancellor, Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning

Once again, my name is Paul Fogolin. I am the Vice President of Government Relations and Communications at the Ontario Retirement Communities Association and the first Vice President of the Empire Club of Canada. Ladies and gentlemen, your head table guests.

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge two other special guests in the audience today, and that is the CEO of the Ontario Retirement Communities Association, my boss, Laurie Johnston and our Board Chair, Sharon Henderson. Now, that I have secured my Christmas bonus, on to the serious stuff.

Last year marked a significant demographic milestone: It was the first year in Canadian history where there were more seniors than children. Let that sink in for a moment. By 2041, seniors over 65 will represent one quarter of the Canadian population compared to around 15% today. The statistics are quite staggering. As the demands of older seniors change and evolve, it is incumbent upon the leaders operating within the so-called continuum of care that they evolve along with them, particularly, to support their independence, their well-being and their desire for choice.

It is also important, however, that we do not treat this silver tsunami as a problem to be solved. In fact, the term ‘silver tsunami’ itself is problematic because it insinuates that the aging population and the seniors that we serve are a burden, even a threat to society. Seniors are not a problem to be solved; they are our parents, our grandparents and friends. They fought wars, raised families and built this great country. They have lived meaningful lives, and they will continue to do so as they age, so, yes, there will be challenges. As people age, the body’s resilience diminishes, so with more Canadians living longer than ever, we know that there will be an acute need for housing and care for this population.

But where there are challenges, there are always opportunities. In spite of the harrowing scale of the demands that we face, there is cause for optimism, cause for hope. This hope arises from the talented Canadians who are working and dedicated to improving the lives of seniors, whether in government, the volunteer world or the private sector. These are good people, capable people, compassionate people who are rising to the occasion and seeking a path forward. These people are committed to serving the needs of our aging population responsibly and, most importantly, with the respect and dignity that seniors deserve. Thomas G. Wellner is one of these people. To provide insight into Tom’s background and vast array of accomplishments, it is my pleasure to welcome Mr. Stephen Pincus from Goodmans to the podium.

Introduction by Stephen Pincus, Partner, Goodmans LLP.

Thank you, Paul. It is a special privilege to introduce Tom Wellner to you this afternoon. Tom is President and CEO of Revera Retirement Living, an iconic Canadian company in the senior living sector. He joined Revera in early 2014 from LifeLabs and CML where he led Canada’s largest medical diagnostics company.

We at Goodmans have been fortunate to work closely with Tom at both Revera and CML. It is 20 years since we took CML public on the TSX, and we advised it through its evolution until its privatization under Tom’s leadership in 2013. Coincidentally, this year also marks the 20th anniversary of our deep and ongoing involvement with Revera from the creation and subsequent combination of its two public predecessors through its structuring and development of its multifaceted businesses and to its continued growth into the international powerhouse that Tom leads today.

Revera serves more than 50,000 seniors by providing seniors’ apartments, independent living, assisted living, memory care and long-term care in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. Tom joined Revera with extensive global healthcare experience, having played a transformative role not only at CML and LifeLabs, but also at international companies like Eli Lilly and Therapure Bio- pharma.

At Revera, Tom has already spearheaded innovation and transformational change and worked with several partners, including Welltower, to grow Revera’s portfolio to more than 500 properties internationally.

Tom is a charismatic and extremely effective leader who inspires loyalty and dedication in everyone he works with. This is event every day as he leads Revera’s team of 45,000 employees and, as you will see today, Tom is a highly strategic thinker with a creative and incisive mind, a clarity of vision on a broad range of issues and a passion for enhancing the quality of the aging experience.

It is in all our interests to challenge and eliminate ageism. It is difficult to imagine someone more suited to championing the project. Please, join me in welcoming Tom Wellner to the Empire Club.

Thomas Wellner

Wow, Paul and Stephen, thank you very much for that extremely generous introduction. When I ran into Stephen behind the curtains, he said he needed to do a little more research to dig out some more interesting insights into my background, but I told him he was okay.

Thank you all very much for taking time out of each of your busy days to be with us here today to talk about a very important subject: Ageism.

Before I get to my formal remarks, I just wanted to take an opportunity to personally thank a couple of members of the audience. First and foremost, my wife, Mary and my mother-in-law, Claire. Without them, you do not get very far, so thank you. The Honourable Mario Sergio, I wanted to say thank you for always being there for Revera. You seem to always be able to find time in your busy schedule to be here to support the interests of Ontario and Canadian seniors. Thank you. Our Board member, Dr. Cal Stiller, who has made the trek from London, Ontario. Recently, Cal has been recognized at the University of British Columbia with another recognition last week with an honourary doctorate, and he also delivered the commencement speech, which I found extremely interesting, and you can also pick it up on YouTube, but Dr. Stiller heads our Investment Committee and also has been a long-standing Board member of Revera, and we thank you for all your support.

We have our industry partners, Welltower along with Goodmans. We thank you for your kind support and the venerable Hazel McCallion, to whom I will refer later in my talk. We thank you, Revera’s other CEO and Sheridan for the great work that we have done together on this report.

My formal remarks. Today, I would like to talk to you about aging and the opportunity we all have to make very real change in the lives of Canadian seniors with the actions we can take right now. When I became CEO of Revera two years ago, the Board made my mandate clear: Transform the company into a major owner-operator and investor in seniors living across Canada, the US and the UK.

What I did not know at the time was that I was also signing on to a social movement to combat ageism, but I was. And this movement is central to my talk today because changing that social view is vital to all of us. We are all getting older every minute of every day, even as we sit here together in this room. Today, our society tends to view aging as a slow period of decline. In reality, we view it as another stage of our lives that can be rich with learning and opportunity and tremendous happiness. To bring this perspective to life, I will talk about a new report we have just published that speaks to the challenges faced by Canada’s fastest-growing segment of people, people over the age of 65. I will also touch on some of the ways organizations can serve, transform and invest in this, our richest cohort of consumers.

Finally, I want to issue a call to action to all of us individually, to organizations and to governments and regulators. Our attitudes, our policies and our action must all change to meet the needs of what is now six million Canadians. And by 2024, we will grow to eight million. Let me put a finer point on it. The real opportunity is to dramatically improve life for older adults. For some of you in this room, 65 may seem like light years away, but I can assure you that the changes we can make today will not only benefit your parents, they will also make a real and tangible difference to you in the not-to-distant future.

The overwhelming barrier to improving the lives of seniors is ageism, stereotyping or discriminating against a person because of their age. If I ask you to raise your hand if you have ever practiced ageism or if you have ever discriminated against people because they are gay or women or Black or Jewish, you would be outraged, but I can say I have practiced ageism. Have you ever said to a friend, “I’m having a senior’s moment?” I know I have. Do you believe that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks? When you see someone walking slowly, do you think that their thinking has slowed as well? Do you speak to them more slowly or, perhaps, more loudly or, perhaps, in a voice more akin to a child? If you have done any of these things, you have practiced ageism, and you may not even know it, but not knowing it is likely why ageism is far the most tolerated form of social prejudice in Canada today—way ahead of racism and sexism.

Racism and sexism are widely called out swiftly. Ageism, not so much, but it needs to be, and it needs to start right now. That is just one of the conclusions from the “Revera Report on Ageism” conducted by Revera and the Sheridan Centre for Elder Research. In the report, we found that one in four Canadians admits to treating someone differently because of their age. The report’s subtitle, “Independence and Choice as We Age,” speaks to why ageism is both so widespread and difficult to root out. Some of it is driven by pride and by the word ‘still’: “Dad is 85, and he can still drive the car on his own.” “Mom is 95, and she is still sharp as a tack.” Older people have standing in our society only to the degree that they can do what younger people can do, and what happens if they cannot? Do they just disappear?

Some of ageism is fueled by us simply trying to be helpful, trying to do the right thing. But, unfortunately, by taking away seniors’ independence and reducing their choice, we end up doing exactly the wrong thing. Our report revealed that more than half of Canadians over the age of 77 say that younger people assume they cannot do things for themselves. Worse, a quarter of adults say that because of their age, younger people are making choices for them. We use words like ‘helpful’ or ‘responsible’ to describe how we feel when we make decisions on behalf of seniors, but we need to listen to adults 77 and older who say they feel ‘controlled’ and ‘annoyed’ when choices are made for them. Ultimately, ageism robs seniors of independence and choice, but the good thing about ageism is that unlike most other isms, it is not ingrained with bitterness or hatred; rather, it is covered by a gloss of ignorance that can often be scrubbed clean by a quick application of awareness.

At Revera, we are taking a leading role in tackling ageism. Today’s “Revera Report” marks the second time we have issued such a call to action. The first was four years ago, when we partnered with the International Federation of Ageing on the first study of Canadians’ attitudes towards aging. From the report, we launched a campaign called “Age is More” to shed light on ageism as a significant social issue that prevents older people from living their life to the fullest. “Age is More” also celebrates the ageless spirit of older people.

Revera has more than 500 senior living communities across Canada, the US and the UK. And through millions and millions of human interactions every day, we serve the needs of seniors and their family. In my role as CEO, I have the honour and privilege of being able to spend time with older adults. Most of our residents are in their 80s and 90s, senior seniors or super-seniors as we like to call them, and what I learned from them is that this period of their lives can be tremendously rich and rewarding. I am not claiming growing old is a picnic, but as Betty Davis said, “Growing old isn’t for sissies.” However, we need to stop viewing this period in our lives as a time of decay and decline.

I recently visited Donway Place community here in Toronto where I met a resident named Mary Anna Higgins. Mary Anna is here today with us. Marianna, where are you? There you are. Mary Anna, if you do not know, teaches residents how to play the piano, and I play a little bit of piano myself. When I was at the Donway, Mary Anna kindly engaged me in a duet. After our duet was finished, we got to talking, and what I found most interesting was to learn the joy that Mary Anna gets by sharing her passion for music with the other residents in the community. And that sharing and how she is able to be with them and make a difference in their lives is tremendously important to both her as well as the other residents in the community because, after all, study after study reveals that the older you get, the happier and more optimistic you become—again disproving one of the building blocks of ageism that our 70s, 80s and 90s are spent marking time waiting for the end.

What is to be done? How can we change attitudes that feed ageism and starve the promise that growing old can have for all of us? Let me touch on a few recommendations in the “Revera Report,” and I will start with a few that apply to us all, whether as individuals or organizations. For one, we can avoid making assumptions about what older adults want or can do. No surprise, when feel more independent and in control, we not only live longer, but we recover faster from health challenges, and our days are happier. In our business, what that means is reminding our personal support workers that if Gail Carnegie—where is Gail? Gail is here today. There you are. Gail is here from our Claremont residence in Toronto—would like a glass of wine, what we need our team to know is do not assume that Gail wants you to go and get that glass of wine. Gail may want to go and get that glass of wine herself because she has been doing it very successfully for many years.

For this to work, we need to know each of our residents on a personal level. We need to understand specifically what is important to them, and we can also recognize our own stereotypes and prejudices. Our Chief Elder Officer, Hazel McCallion, called out a memorable example of stereotyping in a now famous television commercial where she questioned our Former Prime Minster in last fall’s election for presuming that senior citizens are, by nature, frightened. She looked into the camera and asked, “Do I look scared to you, Stephen?” Hurricane Hazel sets an example for all older adults to directly challenge the stereotypes that limit them, and by having her as part of Revera, she has been able to have some tremendously distinct and innovative conversations that I can never have with residents in our communities. She really embodies challenging us to all change our attitudes in that next phase of life.

The other thing we are doing is bringing younger people and older people together. The simple act of spending time with someone from a different generation is a powerful way to keep prejudice from forming, especially, when you are young, which is exactly when most of our prejudices form. In fact, we are doing this at Revera through another initiative called Revera and Reel Youth Age Is More Film Project. Reel Youth is a Vancouver- based nonprofit that helps young Canadians tell stories on film. Through this program, we have paired students with older adults, and we have made 80—yes, 80—short films that celebrate older Canadians and bring together what used to be the two solitudes of old and young. If you ever get an opportunity to participate in one of these films, you will find it a tremendously rewarding process.

Looking to our policymakers, I am confident they will understand that the report’s recommendations are part of the larger movement to urge governments to inject more choice and independence into our systems of health and long-term care—not just provide better care, but make better use of our limited resources. To make that a reality, we are calling for older Canadians to always be at the table when discussing policies that affect them. This is not just 65-year-olds; this is 70-year-olds, 80-year-olds and 90-year-olds. Canadians 50 and older are our most affluent group of citizens, and, while there are no reliable statistics on the power of Canadians over 80 and spending patterns, we know that they and their adult children spend more on health and wellness. When do you not market to one of the richest segments of this society? When you do not do that, you do not tend to invest in it either, and you certainly do not focus on innovation, but those generations of neglect are starting to change. There has never been a greater opportunity for businesses to help older Canadians remain independent as long as possible. The potential upside is tremendous, and companies should do more to explore this expanding market.

At Revera, we believe passionately in both the social potential and the market potential of innovation in the senior sector, and we are not just advocating for innovation, we are driving innovation. I am pleased to announce today the launch of the Revera Innovators in Aging Program. What that is, is each year we are going to select up to 20 innovators that fit our criteria of helping residents, families and our staff in our communities. Those innovators will come into our communities, pilot their latest products and services on a much larger scale in a real-world setting than they have ever been able to do before. We will be testing everything from wearable sensors that help identify seniors’ risks of falls to a device that improves blood flow to help wounds heal faster, to a mobile app that helps seniors stay connected to their loved ones and caregivers.

We have earmarked $20 million to invest over the next five years in some of the innovative companies that we believe can become commercially successful. Our investees will not just have great ideas; they will also have customers with the potential to be introduced into our network and beyond. As John Ruffolo, the co-founder of the Council of Canadian Innovators said about innovation, “We in Canada don’t have a starting up problem; we have a finishing up problem.” So, we are going to help entrepreneurs finish up. In many cases, Revera can become their biggest customer. We can also make our business more efficient and offer higher quality services and a better experience to our residents.

Here is an example of what I mean. We are piloting a meal service platform called Continyou Care in a number of our communities. This is an app that allows for greater personalization during mealtime. When a staff takes a food order from a resident, they will automatically know their dietary restrictions and their meal preferences, and, even better, by streamlining this order process, Continyou Care helps us provide faster food service while our staff takes less time taking orders and more time delivering great customer experience.

I would like to acknowledge some of the talented innovators here with us in the room today. Sameer of Sensassure, where are you? There you are. Thavis and Kolden of Continyou Care and Geoff of Perfuse Medtec, who will all be important partners within our Revera Innovators in Aging Program. I would also like to recognize Bill Jarvis. Bill is one of our residents at Northridge Long Term Care home, and Bill is taking on the very important role of “Revera Resident Innovation Ambassador.” What Bill will help us with—and he is very passionate about this as you get to know Bill—is to really make sure that we are focused on the right things for the residents and the right things for the family and make sure that the technologies we choose will do exactly that.

I cannot believe that technology has not yet truly caught up to this older demographic, and, in my mind, this presents huge opportunity, not just for Revera, but for many of you and your organizations today. The senior living sector will be swept with change within five years, and, 20 years from now, people will look back on this world of senior living the way we look back at life before the iPhone and Facebook.

What none of us should tolerate anymore is the one thing I mentioned in the beginning of my remarks today, and that is ageism. If ageism did not exist, much of the fear and ignorance that characterizes many of the interactions that we have with the elderly would change for the better. And change starts here. So, to our policymakers and businesses I say this: We stand on the cusp of tremendous social change, and this change presents a significant opportunity to look at seniors differently, to invest in seniors differently and to work with seniors differently. To all of us here today, individually, I say this: The next time you interact with a senior person, ask yourself if you are being ageist. Check your language; check your assumptions. No more “I’m having a senior’s moment.” No more being “over the hill.” No more thinking, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” We must respect older adults and include them in all the decisions that affect them, never making assumptions about what they can and cannot do. If we can do this, when we are all 80 or 90 or 100, we will be treated with the same respect we are today, and we will enjoy the same independence and choice we do today. Ending ageism will benefit all of us for years to come. Thank you very much.

Questions & Answers

Q: I have a quick question: You have these wonderful 80 short films. Do you have an idea of what you are going to do with them and how you can demonstrate the individuals in each film?

TW: Sure. It is a great question. If anybody did not hear it, with the Revera Reel Youth Film Project, we have the 80 films. What we do with those films is we initially have sessions at our communities where we bring together the filmmakers as well as the residents and their families. It is actually a magical event. It is sort of like a mini-Academy Awards, if you will, and they basically get—and it is a tremendously powerful interaction when they get together. We also use those films, where it is appropriate and where we get releases to do so, to educate our staff and our teams. We have used them in a variety of ways to promote and in some of our commercials as well. Janet and her team do a fantastic job from our communications group to make that happen, but they are tremendously motivating.

Q: If there is one thing that policymakers could do to make a difference, what would you say that would be?

TW: That is great. We sort of touched on it at our lunch discussion. We operate across multiple countries, so I get an opportunity, and I personally have had a chance to work, I think in 30 or 40 different jurisdictions all in healthcare. I have always worked in regulated environments, and I guess what I would say is, aside from what the report recommends, which is really involving seniors in decisions that affect them and not just stopping at 65— do that through the continuum—the main thing I would say is look at policies not just that focus on these steps and regulations monitoring what people are doing, but look at the outcomes. We are, in a lot of cases, having many, many regulations that actually are not practical. I will give you an example: If we in our long term care division respond to a resident’s request to have a meal at 5:00PM, and we actually deliver that at 4:30PM, and we do not properly document that, we get cited for not following the rules. To me, you have to focus on outcomes. I think more and more, the more we can focus and weight the balance and outcomes versus the steps to those outcomes, I think it would be better.

Q: Hi, Tom. I think you had a great message, and your research with Sheridan Centre is really compelling. How do we take this and move it outside our companies and our sector to make sure that this movement is being embraced outside of the people here who are so interested in it because we have to take this beyond just seniors’ housing? I think it is a really important message.

TW: No, thank you. I do believe it is well beyond seniors’ housing. I think people make choices about how they want to live their lives as they grow older. I think each of us can change our own attitudes, but I do think the cohort of “baby boomers” that are there and are coming into this sector are starting to see things and do things through the lens of caring for their parents. I think one of the biggest ways we can unleash the power and the collectivism that can really move this forward is to really activate that baby boomer because that group has always gotten what they wanted since the beginning of the demographic movement. If we can harness and do things within that cohort, I think there will be a tremendously broad wave of push to get the right things in place.

Note of Appreciation by Michelle Roth, Partner, Goodmans LLP

Hello, everybody. As Paul just mentioned, I am a partner at Goodmans, and, as many of you know, I am also the Chair of something called the Canadian Senior Symposium, in which I get the pleasure of working with many wonderful innovators, including Tom. Tom, with your usual flair, your delivery was vibrant, thought-provoking and very compelling.

I want to share a short vignette that I witnessed a few weeks ago at the Goodmans Innovation and Technology Showcase for Aging. Dr. Bill Thomas—some of you may know him; some of you may have seen him—was named one of the USA’s top ten innovators by the Wall Street Journal. It is from him that we learned that the most obscene four-letter word—Tom mentioned it, by the way—is an s- word, but it is not the one you think. It is, as Tom mentioned, the word ‘still’: “Mom is still able to do this.” That touched so deeply on the roots of how ingrained ageism is in our minds and in the way that we think and operate.

Dr. Bill Thomas also asked a question that day. It was a pretty simple one: “Who amongst you”—and this is a crowd of 100+ of our nation’s leaders, leaders on aging and seniors’ housing—has created an innovation department?” In this group, the first and possibly the only person who raised his hand was Tom. I remember thinking then that Tom is our true pioneer, perhaps, as Dr. Stiller would say, “the man on the moon.” The all-knowing Wikipedia defines ‘pioneer’ as “someone who opens up the road to apply, initiate or spearhead a new method, area of knowledge or activity.” I would add to that “a new way of thinking.” Tom is most certainly driving that wagon, and we will eagerly keep our eyes on Tom’s leadership and this brave new world of aging technology and in the battle against ageism.

One of the most important things that Tom is doing is multi-pronged pioneering, so technology innovation spans just a huge mass of matrices: Sophisticated medication and activity tracking, as Tom mentioned; artificial intelligence; brain mapping; virtual reality therapies. But there is another aspect to it that Tom and Revera are also deeply devoted to, and that is the human aspect of it, one of the pieces of armour that we really will have in this battle and that looks at things like how seniors experience the world— and it is the same way that we want to experience the world. We want good food; we want artisanal food, farm-to-table food. We want craft beers, wonderful wines that we can get ourselves if we want to. Tom and Revera hit the nail on the head. They understand this. They also understand that there are innovative technologies around music and other activities.

I had a wonderful moment when I was speaking with a few students, and one of the students was a student from Greenwood College. I was actually interviewing to see whether it was a suitable place for my children, and I asked the question, “What was your favourite day at Greenwood this year?” The answer I got was, “My favourite days”— not “day”—“were the days I spent at the Claremont,” because Tom and Revera had instituted something similar to this Reel Youth Program where the students of Greenwood would go over and help the residents of Greenwood learn to program iPods, learn how to select music, how to find genres, possibly even how to produce a little music. And that was the students. I had not yet interviewed a senior, but that was a student’s favourite time in learning. And that really says a lot about what Tom and Revera are doing.

Thank you, Tom, for taking on the mantle of changemaker in an aging world that simply cannot afford and simply does not deserve anything less. Before stepping down, I would be remiss if I did not offer our appreciation for the Empire Club and, particularly, Taylor Reid and Paul Fogolin. They have been beyond gracious in allowing both Stephen and I to highlight Goodmans’ pride in Tom and our pride in Revera, and I am sure that I am not alone in my impression that this was a wonderfully orchestrated and captivating event. Thank you.

Concluding Remarks by Paul Fogolin, Vice President, Empire Club of Canada

Thanks, again, to Goodmans, our event partner for making this possible. We are close to the finish line, I promise you. A few housekeeping pieces before we head out into the hot sun. I would also like to thank the National Post, as our media sponsor and Rogers TV, our local broadcaster. We would like to thank Mediaevents.ca, Canada’s online event space, for live webcasting today’s event to thousands of viewers around the world.

Although our Club has been around since 1903, we have moved into the 21st century, and we are active on social media. Please, follow us on Twitter at @Empire_Club, and visit us online at www.empireclub.org. You can also follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram—no Snapchat yet. We will get to that.

Finally, please, join us again soon. We have some extraordinary events lined up: Next up we have Anthony Haines, President and CEO of the Toronto Hydro Corporation on June 2nd at the Arcadian Court. Next, we will have Chief Justice McLachlin on June 3rd, also at the Arcadian Court. And, last but not least, Premier Brad Wall, premier of Saskatchewan, will speak on June 14th, also at the Arcadian Court.

Thank you, once again, for attending today. This meeting is now officially adjourned.