Human Resources committee  I can answer your question. As of 2004, workers have been able to choose. The OECD recommendations, be it for Canada or for other countries, included two approaches—the carrot and the stick. The stick consists in forcing older workers to remain in the workforce longer by changing the mandatory age of retirement.

Human Resources committee  I would like to add something. I have not worked on the issue of disability as such, but one of the OECD recommendations was to change the perception Canadians have that older workers are absent more often and are sicker. That is one of the recommendations, but not much is actually being done about that age-based and health-based discrimination in hiring practices.

Human Resources committee  First of all, for older workers, it's about flexible retirement. In Quebec, we see people who do this at the same time. At the federal level, we changed the Income Tax Act to allow people to accumulate their pensions and continue working at the same time. It's something that we recommended in 2004, and it's working.

Human Resources committee  When I discussed pensions, I talked about harmony among our policies, programs and the labour market. During the shortage period when the defined benefit pension plan was established, it was consistent with the need to retain workers who had to stay longer. In addition, life expectancy was 69 years of age.

Human Resources committee  Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for this invitation. I am sorry, but I have not prepared a presentation. So I will try to use the 10 minutes to give you a summary of the research on population aging I have conducted over the past 10 years. I may leave you more time for questions.