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“If you feel lonely, you’re not alone.”

So declared Statistics Canada three years ago, in a study on loneliness, indicative of what catches our attention now. Too many Canadians fear that no one is paying attention to them.

Some 10 per cent of Canadians aged 35-75 reported feeling lonely, before it ticked up to 14 per cent of the more elderly, as widowhood leaves its mark. But younger Canadians were the loneliest ones, contrary to what one would expect in the flower of life; nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of those 15-24, and 15 per cent of those 25-34.

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It’s not a Canadian problem. In 2017, the Cox commission in the United Kingdom reported that loneliness had adverse health effects equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

After the pandemic, in 2023, the Biden administration’s surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, published a report on the “epidemic of loneliness and isolation.”

In addition to the emotional and psychological suffering of loneliness, Murthy wrote that it produces worse health outcomes than obesity and inactivity, and is “associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death.”

In Canada, we learned this year that loneliness is more directly linked to premature death.

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