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Addressing the Health Care Needs of our Rapidly Aging Population

Honourable Minister Cam Jackson

Addressing the Health Care Needs of our Rapidly Aging Population
An Interview with the Hon. Cam Jackson, Ontario's Minister of Long-Term Care with Responsibility for Seniors

Olya Lechky

The Honourable Cam Jackson, Ontario's Minister of Long-Term Care with Responsibility for Seniors, has a personal interest in health issues that goes back to his boyhood days in Hamilton, Ontario. Born in this industrial city in February, 1951, of a Ukrainian-Canadian mother and Canadian father, he and his siblings saw firsthand the struggles of their parents to keep a large family healthy. "Raising a family of eight children in the fifties when there was no health insurance, no drug plan, no dental plan was challenging in the absence of this kind of support. I was impressed very early on with the importance of accessibility to health care. In those days, doctors still made house calls. Of course, things have changed tremendously since those days and people face different obstacles in accessing health care services."

After briefly pursuing a career in real estate development in his early twenties, Mr. Jackson decided to follow his true calling of serving the public.