Human Rights and Ageing: Strategies for an Equitable Future

Invitation to Join us in Celebrating COSCO’s 75th Anniversary

Please consider this your personal invitation to attend this important and timely national conference to be held October 4 and 5, 2025, with registration and an evening reception on Friday October 3.

This milestone event offers an important opportunity to address the pressing challenges facing our community of older adults. Together, we’ll honour 75 years of shared accomplishments and shape a bold, forward-looking vision for COSCO BC—one that meets the needs of today and anticipates the possibilities of tomorrow. Together with several hundred conference participants, you will help form public policies that recognize the vital importance of human rights in promoting healthy ageing for all Canadians.

Insightful ideas. Evidence-based facts. Time to reflect. Cutting-edge research on issues that impact us all. You’ll experience all this and more from our outstanding lineup of speakers and presenters. Just as vital, a series of interactive workshops will invite participants to share their experiences and wisdom. We encourage you to join us to learn, contribute, and help shape an equitable future for all through inclusive, sustainable, and age-friendly communities.

Our roster of confirmed speakers includes:

• Margaret Gillis, President of the International Longevity Centre (Canada) and co-founder of the Canadian Coalition Against Ageism, an international expert and advocate for the UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons.
• Kasari Govender, BC’s Commissioner of Human Rights who will provide her perspective on the human rights of older persons in British Columbia.
• Dan Levitt, the BC Seniors Advocate, will provide insights into the latest trends that will inform the future of the lives of older adults in older adults.

These and other experts – as you’ll see in the attached preliminary program – will address plenary sessions. We have also assembled high level panels to present and debate current viewpoints on key issues. Workshops will give participants the opportunity to discuss and share their first-hand experience, and to determine how we can move forward to build communities and public policies that work for all.

This unique conference will be of interest to everyone who cares about civil society, and of particular interest to:

• Seniors and seniors’ representatives from across B.C. and Canada.
• Municipal leaders and planners, including councillors, social planning representatives, parks and recreation and health authority representatives.
• Elected officials, including MLAs, Members of Parliament and First Nations leaders.
• Federal and provincial departments dealing with seniors.
• Non-governmental organizations such as social planning councils, seniors and community centre staff, agencies supporting older adults, unions, and advocacy groups.

We urge municipal councils to support the participation of representatives from seniors’ advisory and age-friendly committees to attend. We hope that every municipality in the province will send at least one representative. We invite provincial ministries to sponsor delegates from provincial seniors’ coordinating bodies. We ask unions to sponsor members who work with seniors.

You may register for this conference at coscobc.org/conference, where you will find all the information you need to register. The registration fee includes all conference materials, an opening reception, two lunches, our gala 75th Anniversary Celebration banquet and four coffee breaks. The hotel package includes free parking for all participants, shuttle service to the Vancouver airport and is pet-friendly.

As the organizers of this conference, the Council of Senior Citizens’ Organizations of B.C. (COSCO) believes seniors and their organizations must contribute directly to developing the policies that affect their lives to ensure the policies are fair and just.

We thank the conference sponsors together with a number of organizations which have provided support, including the New Horizons Program for Seniors. We look forward to welcoming you or your representative to this conference.

Yours sincerely,