From: nobody@pseudo.borked.net   
      
   A glimpse into the future of our aging nation   
    Welcome to Elliot Lake, Canada's most elderly community. Upsides:   
   Bungalows   
   under $100K, wheelchair accessibility, carpet bowling. Downsides: Doctor   
   shortage, dwindling tax base, con artists. This is our future   
    PATRICK WHITE   
   From Monday's Globe and Mail   
   July 30, 2007 at 8:52 AM EDT   
    ELLIOT LAKE, ONT. - The great scooter debate of 2007 had been percolating   
   for some time before the commander of the local police detachment stood   
   before city council at the end of June to clarify the whole issue once and   
   for all.   
    Cyclists and drivers alike had been grumbling about sharing the town's   
   winding roads with electric vehicles and their grey-haired pilots.   
    Under the law, as the commander laid out, "mobility vehicles" are   
   analogous   
   to pedestrians and stay off the roads. In other words: Tough luck,   
   scooters.   
    But the pronouncement hasn't deterred the defiant citizens of Elliot Lake   
   (population 12,500), Canada's most elderly community. On any given day,   
   they   
   whir down Hillside Drive against traffic, bent over their handlebars as if   
   engaged in some tense game of chicken.   
    "They've pulled me over three times now for riding on the road," said one   
   woman scooting her way toward Zellers, No Frills and the rest of the shops   
   chiselled into a Precambrian knob, halfway along the 300 kilometres of   
   uranium-rich Shield country that separates Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie,   
   Ont. "Like I'm some hardened criminal. They tell me to ride on the   
   sidewalk,   
   but it's too damned bumpy. The pavement's easier on me back."   
    While the scooter controversy smouldering in Elliot Lake has so far   
   escaped   
   national attention, the goings-on in this sleepy former mining town could   
   be   
   a harbinger of things to come for our aging nation.   
    "Elliot Lake is a living laboratory for the rest of the country," former   
   mayor George Farkouh says. "The country should be coming here to see how   
   we've done it."   
    In census data released two weeks ago, Elliot Lake tied with Parksville,   
   B.C., as the country's oldest community. Given that Elliot Lake is aging so   
   quickly - its median age has shot up from 24 to 55 in just 20 years - this   
   isolated town should be leading the race in time for the next census.   
    The rest of the country won't be far behind. That same census data noted   
   that one in seven Canadians is over 65 and anticipated the proportion to   
   double in 25 years. More of us will retire from careers than embark on them   
   over the next few decades.   
    Established in 1955 to supply the fissile heart of the budding arms race,   
   Elliot Lake was once "the uranium capital of the world." By 1989, it was   
   home to 4,500 miners quarrying a metal without a market. The future of the   
   hardscrabble town that inspired a Stompin' Tom Connors song and the most   
   poignant scenes from novelist Alistair MacLeod's modern classic No Great   
   Mischief appeared so bleak that the power company refused to invest in the   
   town's grid, resulting in rolling brown-outs.   
    "The town was in the balance," Mr. Farkouh says. "We were on the verge of   
   disappearing."   
    So the city council found another primary industry: seniors. They hatched   
   Elliot Lake Retirement Living, which snapped up housing left vacant by   
   deserting miners and marketed it to retirees across the country.   
    By 1990, when the two major local mines finally announced closings, the   
   city   
   council began investing millions in making Elliot Lake senior-friendly. It   
   renovated buildings and sidewalks to make them wheelchair accessible. It   
   hired a seniors' issues officer to liaise between police and the growing   
   retiree population. It built a $6-million 18-hole golf course and pushed   
   through provincial legislation allowing it to develop condominiums along   
   waterfront Crown land.   
    Retirees have responded by buying up Elliot Lake en masse. Many sold   
   several-hundred-thousand-dollar homes in Southern Ontario and bought former   
   miners' bungalows for less than $50,000, freeing up cash to fish, canoe and   
   ski. Some even bought an old union hall and started the Renaissance   
   Seniors'   
   Centre, which attracts hundreds of locals for bridge, carpet bowling and   
   bean-bag baseball.   
    Today, one in three Elliot Lakers is older than 65, up from about one in   
   30   
   in 1990. The occupancy rate stands at 97 per cent, pushing the average   
   price   
   of a small bungalow to $88,000 from $64,000 since 1998.   
    "We don't have much in the way of shopping here, but aside from that,   
   there's no end of things to do here," said Norma Arnold, 76, who moved to   
   Elliot Lake from Hamilton with husband Charles 11 years ago. "We've had   
   Rita   
   MacNeil here and Stuart McLean is coming in the fall."   
    Even if the town is a little isolated, livelier venues are, like all   
   things   
   in Elliot Lake, easily accessible. "There's always the bus that goes from   
   here straight to the casino in the Soo," says Charles Arnold, 77.   
    But the top-heavy demographic has presented some vexing problems for the   
   town.   
    For one, it can't keep enough practising doctors around. Last year, two of   
   the 10 doctors in town retired. To curb the loss, council is hiring a   
   full-time recruiter and ponying up extra funds to reel in young doctors.   
   Last month, a new community medical complex opened up in the town centre.   
   Built in partnership with Rexall, it has rent-free clinic space where new   
   doctors can settle in with relatively few expenses.   
    At the same time that doctors are in short supply, the town's health-care   
   needs are increasing. "We have really struggled," says St. Joseph's General   
   Hospital chief executive officer Mike Hukezalie. "Nobody quite understands   
   yet how to deal with this unique population."   
    The hospital has had to invest heavily in mechanical lifts, a bone density   
   machine and the labour necessary to lift frail seniors out of chairs and   
   onto beds, X-ray tables and into bathtubs.   
    It has also become the biggest employer in town, ahead of Algoma Manor and   
   Huron Lodge, two of the three seniors homes in town.   
    With so much of the labour force dedicated to servicing the town's   
   unwieldy   
   retiree population, younger Elliot Lakers have few opportunities to pursue   
   more fulfilling work.   
    "They say there's a labour shortage in town, but only if you want to be a   
   plumber or an electrician or something," says Chris Burley, 22, walking to   
   his janitorial job, with punk band Rise Against blaring through his   
   headphones. "Reality is, there ain't a lot of good work here. If you're an   
   old fart, great, but everybody my age just drinks and thinks about getting   
   the hell out."   
      
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