The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - What Is the Fastest-Growing Age Group In Canada?

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

It's an End Bits Wednesday, and you know what that means -- news you can use. A number of different "bits" today, including a fact that may surprise you. Of all the different age groups that exist in our society, which one do you think is the fastest growing? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of the bridge. What do you think is the fastest growing age group in Canada? You might be surprised. You'll find out on our Wednesday end bit special. Coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansprich here, yes, midweek over the hump, or hump day, or at least getting over the hump of the week.

Wednesday with the weekend insight. Kind of like that. Busy day in the nation's capital again. Parliament's sitting. Lots of back and forth. We've talked a little bit about that already this weekend. Of course, we'll be talking about it a lot on Friday on Good Talk with Chantelle and Bruce. Today's an N-Bit special.

We'll get to those in a minute, and for those of you who are new to the program, and I know there are some of you. A Wednesday end-bit special is the little bit of the little bit of the show. and pieces that we normally have around us filler, in case we have a few minutes to spare. But they're interesting. And every once in a while we can put a whole program together just of end bits. They usually get people talking.

So we'll try that today. A reminder that tomorrow is your turn and the random ranter, of course. The your turn question this week is ask me anything. and we've had a lot of questions come in. If you recall, ask me anythings, which we do once a month, the last Thursday of each month. If you recall, we don't get as many of your letters in because I've got to answer them.

And so I try not to ramble too much, but as a result, it's what we deemed to be, what we deemed to be not necessarily the best, questions, but the questions that I actually can answer. So we try that. That's tomorrow. And you've got a couple of hours left to get your letters in. 3 p.m. Eastern time today is the cutoff. No more than 75 words. Include your name and the location you're writing from. And what's the other thing? I can't remember.

it is well the time 3 p.m. Eastern today. So you follow all those rules and you got a shot at getting your letter read. And your question asked. All right, let's get to the NBits. You know, you heard the tease at the top, the program. What is the fastest growing age group in Canada? You know, from those of us who are baby boomers, although it sounds funny to say that,

seeing as we're all sort of over 75 now, but if you're a baby boomer, you've always been kind of used to being part of the fastest growing age group in the country. Certainly in your early years, that is not the case anymore. This is going to shock you. I think it's going to shock you. Maybe it won't.

Statistics Canada data show the country's population of people aged at least 100, more than tripled between 2000 and 20203, up from 3,393 to 11,775. Let's think of that. 775 people over the age of 100.0. That makes centenarians the fastest growing age group in Canada. Can you believe that? The fastest growing age group in Canada.

And Statscan says their numbers are poised to rise almost 10 times higher over the next half century. Now that probably doesn't surprise you. You've heard all about the cost of rising elder care and not just the cost, but the numbers who are in that category. Pensions, what have you, health care. You know, to look after that community is going to cost a lot. Anyway, congratulations to those of you that have passed into triple figures. Isn't that something?

I remember interviewing a 101-year-old who had been born in 1890. And I did the interview in 2001. So she had actually lived in three different centuries. Not many people can say that. All right. Let's see where this story goes, because that's just a fun fact, as we'd like to call them. I had producers in various big shows I did,

including my friend, colleague, co-author Mark Boguch, who would arrange to have, when I would end up on the air with some big special, you know, it could be an election night, could be a royal wedding, could be any number of things. and he designate one of the newer producers get some fun facts for Mansbridge and these would be little things that

in some way related to the show we were doing and I could use in a slow moment during the broadcast whatever bring out a fun fact and talk about it. In some ways, n bits are fun facts. Same idea. Okay, so we're,

why are we talking about, there's a number of stories here today about age. Now, as interesting as those Canadian figures are, where do you hear this? Japan has a national daily newspaper. It's called the Mainichi. And here's a story they wrote just last week. The headline is the number of centenarians. I'm having a problem with that word. The number of centenarians in Japan tops 100,000 for the first time.

But it has gone up every year for 56 years, the number of centenarians. Look at that. I got it. So here's the story. The number of people aged 100 or older in Japan reached a record high of 107,67727 in September, climbing for the 56th consecutive year. The total number of centenarians, impressive, grew by 7,914 from the previous year, surpassing the 100,000 threshold for the first time.

What do you think the split is, men and women? Just guess, like in a percentage. What do you think is? 50-50, 60-40, one way or the other? 70-30. What's your guess? Here's the answer. Women made up 87.6% of the cohort, with 94,000 plus of that total.

The figures compiled based on the basic resident register as of September 1st this year showed the numbers of centenarian men and women and grew by 1,600,615 respectively. Another 54,000 plus will become 100 years old within fiscal 2026, up by almost 2,000 from the previous year. We are pleased that many people are living longer and remaining active, thanks in part to advances in medical technology,

said one of the officials at a press conference. As the population continues to weigh it is extremely important to make the social security system sustainable. No kidding. We're facing that too. Not just for 100 plus year olds, but to the very fact of our aging population. Japan's social security costs are swelling each year

due to its declining birth rate and aging population, putting pressure on public finances, especially since the country's fiscal health is already the worst. among major advanced economies. And then they got a bunch of quotes from some of these people from an 114-year-old her name's Fuyo Kishimoto,

she's the oldest woman. The oldest man is 112. These numbers are amazing, right? You know, when you get to a certain age, like I'm at, I turn 78 this summer. So, you know, you do start thinking ahead, figuring, you know, if I stay healthy, if I'm lucky, if I live a good lifestyle, how long do I think I'm going to last? You know, you do think about that. And so you look at your family history on those kind of things.

How long did your father live? How long did your mother live? And you figure, well, you know, there's probably. something to those numbers that might impact me. But a hundred? I don't think so. Can you imagine? Hello there.

Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of the bridge. Yeah. You know, just got to keep it going for a while. Now, here's topic number two. And it's kind of related. You know, some people find it awkward to talk about this, but it's not awkward. The issue is your memory and how to improve it.

In a world where we keep hearing about memory decline, the older you get, dementia, Alzheimer's. What to do? how to try to deal with that and prepare yourself for hopefully avoiding that. So there's a new book out by a renowned brain expert. He's a neurologist with a few simple things that we can do to prevent memory decline as we age. It's in the New York Times. Now, it's been around for a while, but there's no harm in reading it. and listening to it.

If you go on the New York Times website, you can find it. And you can listen to the article. You don't have to read it. You can listen to it. Now, we all know the, we all know one of the ways to ensure that, you know, you worry about, I meet people all the time, I forget their names. You know, I see them a couple of days later. I can't remember who they are.

Well, part of that is because the venue in which you met them might have been busy and active and other people were talking and different things were happening. And it just, you know, it's not a medical condition that you forget the name. It's just too busy and you've forgotten it. So you try to associate it. So it's name association of some kind. You all know that. You've heard this.

You know, you hear a person's name and you immediately try to associate it with an image or a picture or a color. or saying anything. I think it's in this article, actually. Meets a guy named John King. So he goes, okay, king, I'll think crown. Whenever I see this guy again, I'll think Crown, and that'll take me to King. Yeah, right, or it's going to take you to Crown.

And you go, oh, John Crown, I remember you. Yeah, that's not going to work. But you know that saying. But there's other ways of doing this. And this fellow, Dr. Restak, says there's a number of ways of coming up with just kind of, you know, in a way, memory games, challenges to help you remember things.

So that's the visualizing. words. There are other ways, too. You know when you go shopping and sometimes you make up a list of food or your partner says, here, well, you get this and gives you a list, you know, tomatoes, apples, cereal, milk, whatever. And you take the list, you put it in your pocket. You get to the store, you take it out of your pocket. And you start checking off the list.

Now, that's one way of doing it, but that's not a challenge. there's no, you're not forcing your brain to think when you do that other than to remember you have a list in your pocket. The other way of doing it is before you leave the house, look at that list and memorize the list. Just simply try to memorize it. You know, listen, if there are 20 things on the list, that's going to be a challenge. But say there's half a dozen, that shouldn't be a challenge. So you memorize it, you walk to the store, you drive to the store, you may test yourself along the way, but when you get to the store, you've got the list in your pocket for backup, but you basically shop from your memory.

And maybe at the end you pull out the list to see whether you forgot anything. But that simple challenge is activating your brain and your memory function. You know, he has a whole list of things in this article, but, you know, the other ones play games. You know, games like bridge, chess, they're great for memory. But so is a simpler game, says Dr. Restak. For instance, Dr. Restak's favorite working memory game

is 20 questions. Remember 20 questions some of our older listeners would, and our younger ones may not even be aware of it, but should. It's a great game. You don't need to buy a box of the latest game thing. It's just simple. A group or a single person thinks of another person or a place or an object.

And the other person, the questionnaire, asks 20 questions with a yes or no answer. That's it, a yes or no. Now, were you born before 1950? No. You're asking about the person. So the person who's challenging the questionnaire says, starts off by saying, I'm thinking of a person. And they've got the name written down and folded up in front of them. And they just leave it there.

I'm thinking of a person. So then you start. Was this person, you know, born in, you know, before 1980? Is this person living in? Europe. So you keep asking questions. You get only a yes or no answer. And at some point, before the end, run out of the questions,

you guess. Now, you could guess early. But I say, I can't remember what the rules are. If you guess early, you get it wrong. Is the game over? Or do you just keep on going? I mean, you can set your own rules on that, I guess. But the bottom line is, this is a good game for,

memory, for challenging yourself. And it's good for your brain. A couple of other ones. Read more novels. One early indicator of memory issues, says the good doctor, is giving up on fiction. Now, I'm guilty of that.

You know, I read almost exclusively nonfiction. But the doctor says, giving up on fiction is not good. people, when they begin to have memory difficulties, tend to switch to reading nonfiction. Over his decades of treating patients, Dr. Restak has noted that fiction requires active engagement with the text, starting at the beginning and working through to the end. You have to remember what the character did on page three by the time you get to page 11, he said.

He's got three sins of memory, two words. were associated with technology. First is what he calls technological distortion. Storing everything on your phone means that you don't know it. Why bother to focus, concentrate, and apply effort to visualize something when a cell phone camera can do all the work for you? The second way, our relationship with technology is detrimental for memory, is because it often takes our focus away from the task at hand. In our day, the greatest impediment of memory is designed with the aim of addicting the person using them,

and as a result, we are often distracted by them. People today can check their email while streaming networks, talking with a friend, or walking down the street. All of this impedes our ability to focus on the present moment, which is critical for encoding members. Hmm. I hadn't thought of it that way. All right. There's lots more in this article. I'm not going to read it all, but I wanted you to get a sense of some of the ideas behind challenging your memory.

And, you know, you don't have to be 55 to start this. A lot of it you can sort of do at a younger age to get yourself in the rhythm of challenging your brain. All right. Time for a break. A couple more of our end bits here for you this week. We'll do more right after this. And welcome back, Peter Mansperch here with the Thursday. Getting ahead of myself. Where's the memory gone there?

It's not Thursday. It's Wednesday. The latest episode of The Bridge, it's the Wednesday end bit special this week. We hope you're enjoying it. You're listening on Series XM Channel 160 or on your favorite podcast platform. Okay, let's get back to, let's get back to an end bit. Those of you who've listened to me for a while know that I love stories about airlines and airplanes and aviation. So here's one that some of you world travelers would definitely know. and an increasing number of Canadians who take exotic holidays, no.

Here's the question. What do you think the most connected airport in the world is? And by connected, that doesn't necessarily mean busiest. It means connected. In other words, if you're at that airport, you can connect to a flight almost anywhere in the world. right? So what do you think the most connected airport in the world is? I'll tell you this, it's not the one that has been the most connected airport for years.

That is, that's right, Heathrow in London, which I go through a lot, and it's a crazy, busy airport as well, but it's connected. You can look up at the board, the flight board, and you can see cities, countries, around the world. And you can get there from London. Almost all of them, nonstop. But London is no longer the most connected airport in the world. It has been toppled on that ranking.

For the first time, by, guess where? Three, two, one. Istanbul. The Istanbul Airport in terms. Turkey. Istanbul has overtaken Heathrow to become the world's most in. And I'm reading now from, where is this from? The Daily Sabbath. It's a business magazine. Istanbul Airport has overtaken London's Heathrow to become the world's most internationally connected airport. Five of the top global, five of the top ten global aviation hubs are in Europe. Istanbul climbed from second place in 2025 and claim the top spot for the first time.

Istanbul has possible connections to 337 global destinations. It's the national flag carrier of Turkish Airlines. There is the national flag carrier Turkish Airlines. It operates 80% of flights at the airport. Heathrow fell to second place as potential connections on the busiest day fell by 6% year over year, partly reflecting the ongoing disruption to Middle East schedules. Istanbul, meanwhile, recently overtook Heathrow's Europe's busiest airport, Europe's busiest, by passenger numbers, industry groups and officials, including the

London's hub, CEO himself, had been expecting that to happen this year or the next. number three Skippel airport in Amsterdam looking down the list I don't see Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa I don't see any of them on the

anywhere near the top 10 I think you know the top Canadian airport would probably be connected to it be Toronto I'm a guessing there the rankings are based on the number

of possible connections between inbound and outbound flights within a six-hour window on the busiest day of the year, which is apparently Sunday, August 2nd. I thought it would be you know, somewhere

around a you know, a general holiday. But August 2nd is the date they measure on. I know you've heard enough I love this stuff. I love this airport stuff.

Who's number four? K.L. Another one of my old hometowns. KAL, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. And number five, the first North American city to get it on. So what do you think it is? Come on, you're sitting there listening.

I can tell you're thinking it's got to be one of the New York airports or it's L.A. No, no. It's Chicago. It's O'Hare, most connected. Okay? Anyway, there's a whole list of them in this article.

I'm sure you've heard enough already. But interesting, eh? All that time, we figured Heathrow would never, ever get replaced. Okay, what's this story about? Where do you want to be in the world if there's a global catastrophe? This is in live science magazine. headline is where on earth is safest from global catastrophe.

So let's cut to the chase. Let's get right to the answer because you want to get going, right? And just in case it's a global catastrophe before the end of this program, where do you want to be? In the event of a global catastrophe such as a nuclear war, an enormous volcanic eruption or large asteroid strike, the best place to be is Australia, according to a new study. Researchers look to the places that were more resilient, most resilient, to global catastrophic risks, which are events that would kill more than 10% of the global population over several months or years.

And if you figure there's 8 billion people on Earth, We're talking close to a billion casualties on those stats. These kind of catastrophes are under-researched, because they are not very likely. Study first author, Florian Ulrich Jinn, a researcher at Feren University in Hagen, Germany, told live science, that makes them easy to ignore.

Yeah, there's not exactly a lot of research on global catastrophes. When was the last global catastrophe? The strike that killed all the dinosaurs? Was that a global catastrophe? Absolutely. I don't think other things qualify. However, says Florian, they are still possible,

and no country would be unaffected if they occurred, unaffected if they occurred, he said. and some places are more vulnerable than others. Read a little more of this. I don't see Canada's name anywhere in here as a place to hide out. In the news study published just a couple of weeks ago in the journal Global Challenges, researchers analyze studies across a variety of disciplines

such as food security, biological weapons, and volcanism. To identify potential global catastrophic risks and the factors that helped communities to endure them in the past or on a smaller scale. They also brought in subject experts to add discipline-specific papers to their database. Okay, I find all that interesting, but why Australia? You'd think they might explain that in this? But they don't, as I skimmed through the whole article. The team found that wealthier countries and regions with a strong,

industrial base that are not highly reliant on global trade are better able to weather global disasters with a strong industrial base countries are able to manufacture goods that they cannot import making them more resilient geography also plays a role large islands have an advantage over continents because they can easily isolate but they also need to have an economy that can at least partially support itself the researcher said if an island is highly reliant on international trade, like Japan, it will struggle if global trade networks are disrupted. The study found.

Okay, now I get it. What this is really about is if you survive the initial moment of global catastrophe, then what? Where's the best place to be? Well, after hearing all that, that kind of makes sense that it be Australia. And as I go deeper and deeper and deeper down into this article, here comes the pitch. Australia came out as the best location to weather a catastrophic event, the decimated global populations. It is in the southern hemisphere, so far away from the most likely location of a nuclear conflict,

although the authors warn that it is allied with the U.S., which might increase its risk. exposure. It is a major food producer with diverse climatic zones and has significant energy infrastructure. Next best spots are Argentina, Brazil, and New Zealand. New Zealand ranks lower than Australia because it has active volcanoes, a small industrial base and is surrounded by water and vulnerable to tsunamis. Meanwhile, Brazil and Argentina have high levels of inequality and historical political instability the authors wrote. Okay. There you go.

Book your tickets now. Okay, let's find one more. This is good. This comes out every year. New words, right? New words for the, well, in this case, it's the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. there are 1,400 new words.

So let's hear some of these. See how many you use. Well, here's one I think we all use, or we certainly all heard of. Superfood. A food such as salmon, broccoli, or blueberries. I eat all of those. I love salmon.

So you can guess. I'm here in Scotland this week. The most fantastic salmon. wild salmon Broccoli. I love broccoli. I love broccoli just plain. I love broccoli with just a little butter on it. I love broccoli with melted cheese on it.

Or blueberries. Who couldn't look at blueberries? Love blueberries. Having for breakfasts, having for dessert at night. They're all rich in nutrients. And have you heard of this one? Shishito. I think it's Shoshito.

a slender usually mild chili pepper from East Asia on the sweeter side of things the dictionary added cake pop a compressed ball of cake crumbs and icing that's dipped in usually chocolate or sugary coating that sounds dangerous anyone who dreads going to work or school might be familiar with the Sunday scerries you know I've never heard that but I felt it It's the feelings of anxiety or sadness that arise on a Sunday from the knowledge that the weekend is almost over and you know you've got something big on the agenda the next day on Monday. So you get the Sunday scleries.

Come on, there must be a couple more. Oh, here's one. Never heard this one. You know, there are lots of different descriptions of various music, right? There's soft rock, there's hard rock, there's pop rock. Here's a new one. It's called Yacht Rock. And it's in the new dictionary.

It's defined as a style of soft rock music originating in the 1970s and 1980s. There was soft rock in the 70s and 80s. You know, I'm still a 60s guy. It's funny, eh, how your music can be of the generation you grew up in, or the time period you grew up in. Here's one more. Cuffing season. I have not heard that before.

That may also be a product of my age, that I have not heard of cuffing season. It, according to the dictionary, is a time of the year when people who are not married or who are in a relationship begin looking for a short-term romantic partner to spend the colder months of the year with. Cuffing season. Why, hello.

How would you like to join me for cuffing season? Okay. That sounds like a good spot to say. You know what? I think we've heard enough end bits for today. So we'll leave on this note. Tomorrow is Thursday. The random ranter will be by.

I don't know what he's going to speak about tomorrow, but I'm sure it will be something that will get you going one way or the other. And your questions on our monthly Ask Me Anything, your turn program. So that will be. along in less than 24 hours. I'm Peter Mansbridge, and just think of all the things you learned today that you did not know about, including the fastest growing age group in Canada,

are the over 100 set. I find that remarkable. Quite something. Okay, thanks so much for listening. if you're still with us here at the end. I'm glad you traveled with us on this little journey. And I look forward to talking to you again tomorrow. And that tomorrow comes up in less than 24 hours.

Take care. Travel safe. Talk to you soon. Bye for now.