Share your thoughts: Creating a federal policy definition of “senior abuse”

From: Employment and Social Development Canada

Senior abuse is an important human rights issue. It is also a social and public health issue that can undermine an older person’s:

• quality of life
• autonomy
• dignity
• sense of security, and
• mental and physical health

We commit to strengthening Canada’s approach to senior abuse. To that end, we asked for feedback to create a federal policy definition of “senior abuse”. Currently, there is no standard in Canada. It can mean different things to different people depending on their life and ethno cultural experience.

A federal definition will support more consistent and informed:

• awareness and prevention activities
• data collection, and
• program and service delivery

Note: While this issue is commonly known as “elder abuse”, the term “elder” has a distinct cultural meaning for Indigenous communities in Canada. In recognition of this, we will use “senior abuse” to describe this issue throughout the consultation.

Who was the focus of this consultation

The Government of Canada engaged with:

• researchers and academics
• groups and other experts that:
  • represent older adults,
  • provide support to older adults, and
  • work with persons with disabilities, LGBTQ2 communities, new immigrants, official language minority communities.
• Indigenous communities, governments and organizations
• members of the general public, including seniors

Key questions

The online survey focused on themes related to support defining “senior abuse”.

Specifically:

• preferred term to describe the issue
• elements or behaviours to include in a definition
• types of information or data needed to develop senior abuse policies

Related information

• ESDC Consultation and engagement activities privacy notice statement