It is no secret Canada’s population is aging and aging quickly.

For the past decade, much of the public conversation has treated immigration as the only answer to population aging. Advocacy groups and political parties at all levels of government have clashed over immigration. More recently, as public opinion shifts and governments reduce immigration targets, immigration can no longer be the default solution.

Immigration does remain an important part of Canada’s demographic strategy. Caregiver programs, agricultural and skilled-worker streams continue to fill crucial labour gaps. But immigration cannot carry the aging-workforce problem alone nor can it outpace population aging forever.

Rather than looking outward only, Canada should also look inward and ask: what can we do with the population we already have? Two groups often overlooked in aging-workforce debates are mothers who face barriers to returning to work and older Canadians who are too often pushed out before they are ready to leave. With the correct approach, these two groups can help ease Canada’s aging workforce problem.

Canada already has a large pool of skilled workers not being used as effectively as possible. Mothers’ labour-force participation has risen dramatically over time: Among mothers aged 20 to 49 with a child three years or younger, participation increased to 77.1 per cent in 2022 from 33.5 per cent in 1976. The share of mothers returning to work sometime after........

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