{"id":618934,"date":"2026-04-21T14:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T14:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/618934\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T14:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T14:08:09","slug":"letter-dementia-isnt-a-national-emergency-in-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/618934\/","title":{"rendered":"LETTER: Dementia isn\u2019t a national \u2018emergency\u2019 in Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>              LETTER: Dementia isn\u2019t a national \u2018emergency\u2019 in Canada<\/p>\n<p class=\"pubStamp\">Published 7:00 am Tuesday, April 21, 2026<\/p>\n<p>Editor,<\/p>\n<p>Re: <a href=\"https:\/\/surreynowleader.com\/2026\/04\/01\/surrey-man-calling-on-feds-to-declare-dementia-a-national-health-emergency\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Talk radio host urges dementia declared national emergency<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Ivan Scot wants the federal government to declare that dementia is a national emergency, and to establish a cross-party dementia task force.<\/p>\n<p>Formally declaring an emergency is a legal mechanism usually reserved for immediate threats like pandemics or natural disasters. Applying it to a chronic, progressive condition like dementia is a strategic \u201crebranding\u201d rather than a functional policy change.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Scott\u2019s demand for a \u201ccross-party task force\u201d ignores the National Strategy for Alzheimer\u2019s Disease and Other Dementias Act (2017) and the Ministerial Advisory Board on Dementia which already serve this purpose. His proposal assumes a lack of structure where one actually exists.<\/p>\n<p>The federal and B.C. governments provide many resources and services to prevent and cope with dementia. To learn more, ask your doctor or search online for \u2018Canada government dementia\u2019 and \u2018B.C. government dementia.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>David Purser, Surrey <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LETTER: Dementia isn\u2019t a national \u2018emergency\u2019 in Canada Published 7:00 am Tuesday, April 21, 2026 Editor, Re: Talk&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-618934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}