Poor health costs Canada $100 billion and clients may be suffering
Retirement plans are built on assumptions: contribution timelines, income projections, and targeted drawdown dates. When a client leaves the workforce early due to illness, or reduces their hours to care for an aging parent, those assumptions shift. The window for compound growth narrows, and the financial cushion required at retirement grows. As Wealth Professional has reported, advisors are increasingly being asked to navigate the intersection of client health and financial planning, with some going so far as to incorporate wellness programming into their client engagement model.
That intersection is about to widen. Canada’s aging population means that caregiving responsibilities will intensify across the advisory client base in the coming decade. Clients caring for parents while still in the workforce – sometimes described as the “sandwich generation” – face compounded financial risk that sits squarely in an advisor’s purview.
The Deloitte report outlines seven integrated actions it believes governments, employers, health care organisations, and other stakeholders should pursue. These include enrolling every Canadian in a primary care model focused on prevention, removing structural barriers to accessing health care, giving individuals financial tools to invest in their own health, and meaningfully modernising digital health infrastructure.
As Wealth Professional has explored, advisors who work closely with clients across life stages are often the first to notice signs of diminished capacity or mounting caregiver stress. That proximity gives them an opportunity: to flag health-related risks to retirement readiness before they become crises, and to help clients understand why robust financial planning and proactive health decisions are, ultimately, the same conversation.
“There is no single solution to Canada’s health-productivity gap, but there are practical steps we can take now that will pay dividends in both the near and long term,” said Matthew Stewart, Partner, Economic Advisory at Deloitte Canada. “Better prevention, improving workforce participation and smarter use of existing capacity and technology could unlock billions in economic value and strengthen Canada’s long-term growth.”
