A bilingual helpline and referral service for elder abuse says it's received more calls from the public in 2017 compared to 2016.
There's been a 35 per cent increase in calls at the Elder Mistreatment Helpline, now in its 7th year.
Cindy Thériault, a planning, programming and research officer for the helpline, says a lot of different calls are coming in.
The most common, she says, is what's called financial and material abuse.
"Anyone that is having some money stolen or anything regarding misuse of their money or their house, it's about a third of the calls" said Thériault.
The calls break down as follows:
- 35% Financial and material mistreatment
- 30% psychological mistreatment
- 15% violation of human rights
- 20% combination of all the other types: physical, organizational, sexual mistreatment and ageism.
Thériault adds the 35 per cent increase in calls is not necessarily because there's more mistreatment, but largely the result of increased public awareness of the hotline, thanks in part to a provincial awareness campaign.
The hotline number is 1-888-489-2287.