Prince Edward Island news — CAG2026 Charlottetown opens today, and for three days the smallest province will host Canada’s biggest conversation about getting old. The Canadian Association on Gerontology’s 55th annual meeting brings researchers, policymakers, and care providers from across the country to the Delta Hotels Prince Edward, under the theme “Crossing Currents: Navigating Aging through Collaboration and Coordinated Action.”
By Maplestime News Desk | Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island | October 15, 2026
Sources: University of Prince Edward Island, CAG2026 | Last updated: October 15, 2026
Key Takeaways
- The Canadian Association on Gerontology’s 55th annual scientific and educational meeting runs October 15–17 at the Delta Hotels Prince Edward in Charlottetown.
- Co-chaired by UPEI’s Dr. Jessica Strong and Mount Saint Vincent University’s Dr. Janice Keefe, the program covers aging and climate change, the human/animal bond in late life, home care, family caregiving, and long-term care staff well-being.
- The CAG2026 Charlottetown main program opens with a ceremony at 7 p.m. tonight, after a day of pre-meeting workshops. Special events include a CIHR Institute of Aging student poster competition.
- With home care and long-term care under pressure in every province, Charlottetown is hosting a national policy conversation that reaches far beyond P.E.I.
Why CAG2026 Charlottetown Is Happening Now
Canada is aging fast, and the Island is aging faster than most. Home care wait lists, family caregivers burning out, and long-term care homes struggling to keep staff — these are not abstract policy puzzles anymore. They are the daily reality for thousands of Island families, and for millions of Canadians watching their parents move through a system that was never built for this many older adults at once.
That is the backdrop as the Canadian Association on Gerontology — Canada’s premier association for everyone who works, researches, studies, or has an interest in aging — brings CAG2026 Charlottetown to the Delta Hotels Prince Edward this week. For three days, CAG2026 Charlottetown puts the Island’s own aging pressures under a national microscope. This is the association’s 55th annual scientific and educational meeting, and landing it is a genuine coup for a city of 40,000. National policy conferences of this weight usually go to Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal.
“We’re excited to host colleagues from across the country and presenters from around the world at this important annual event in the field of aging,” says co-chair Dr. Jessica Strong of UPEI. “We expect enlightening discussions, valuable networking, and presentations showcasing the latest research, programs, and policy in aging, gerontology, and geriatrics.”
Inside the CAG2026 Charlottetown Program
Today is a workshop day, with pre-meeting sessions running through the afternoon. The real show starts at 7 p.m. tonight with the opening ceremony, and the full program runs through Saturday.
The keynote lineup reads like a survey of where aging research is headed. Michael Kalu of York University’s Faculty of Health tackles aging and climate change — a pairing that matters enormously on an island province already watching its coastline shrink. Marie-Jose Enders-Slegers, professor emeritus at the Open University in the Netherlands, and Jennifer Baumbusch of UBC’s School of Nursing take on interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration in aging research. Jean Mitchell, UPEI’s own UNESCO Chair in Island Studies and Sustainability, rounds out the keynote slate on the human/animal bond in late life.
Related: P.E.I. Symphony Discover 2026 — Belonging Concert Opens Four-Year Series Sunday
Across the CAG2026 Charlottetown program, paper, poster, symposium, and workshop sessions span health, social science, practice, and policy. Special events include a CIHR Institute of Aging student poster competition, a CIHR-IA strategic planning session, an exhibit hall, and a student connection social.
Charlottetown’s waterfront boardwalk — delegates at CAG2026 Charlottetown are steps from the harbour between sessions. Photo: Bob Linsdell, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Why This Matters Beyond Charlottetown
Here is the honest question: does a three-day conference change anything for the family in Summerside waiting months for a home care assessment? Not by itself. But the people in that room this week — the CIHR-funded researchers, the provincial policy leads, the care providers — are the ones who write the papers that become the briefings that become the budgets. Ideas about how to keep long-term care staff from quitting, or how to support the unpaid family caregivers doing the heaviest lifting in the system, start in rooms like this one.
And there is a symbolism worth noting. The national aging conversation is happening this week in a province that cannot afford to get this wrong. P.E.I. has one of the oldest populations in the country and some of the thinnest margins for policy error. If “collaboration and coordinated action” — the meeting’s theme — means anything, it means the small places at the table, not just the big ones.
Maplestime will provide updates from CAG2026 Charlottetown as announcements are made.
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Will three days of CAG2026 Charlottetown keynotes move the needle on home care wait lists — or is aging policy just another conference talking shop? Tell us in the comments. And share this with every Canadian watching a parent age into a system that is already stretched thin.
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