Les impacts du renforcement des capacités des aînés sur le développement territorial et le vieillissement sur place. Une analyse perceptuelle du cas de St-Quentin au Nouveau-Brunswick (Canada)

In Canada, New Brunswick is a province particularly affected by the aging of its population. This phenomenon raises many social, economic and territorial issues and challenges. Capacity-building for elders goes some way to mitigating the effects. However, what is more specifically its contribution to aging in place and territorial development ? The objective of this article is to assess the perception of local dynamism with regard to the management of an aging population from different components related to the capacity-building of seniors. The case of the small town of St-Quentin, New Brunswick, holds our attention. Our demonstration is based on seven elements related to capacity-building, namely : participation, empowerment, relational life and social capital, sense of identity, resilience and networking. This exploratory case study examined the actors from the angle of social representations using four methods : semi-structured interviews, holding a focus group, conducting individual interviews with seniors and organizing a dissemination activity. The results show that capacity-building has beneficial effects on community vitality and improving the quality of life of the elderly. However, the model has its limits due to conditions inherent to the environment, but also to exogenous factors over which seniors have little control, hence the need for the Government of New Brunswick to put in place a territorial aging strategy.