This is an issue that I identified 15 years ago as being a real live issue in Canada, as it has been in most western democracies. Demographics is the trend...most people are set on making money because of the growing population. Seniors are going from 4.7 million to 9.3 million over the next 20 years. That's almost a doubling of the population.
I can't say enough to Mr. Marston and others, that notwithstanding that the age is being changed, the reality is that Canadians are living longer, healthier lives, which means that 30 to 40 years ago, at 65, very possibly they were in need of social assistance and help from the federal government, but today it's a very different scenario.
My mum is 80 years old and very healthy. She is working full time—a spry young lady, I would call her. She just wrote a book and works at least 50 hours a week. She walked around India with me for two weeks and most of the time she was outrunning me.
This is not what took place 40 to 50 years ago in this country. People are much healthier, because we have such a great, generous health system, because we have a good system of taking care of our society. I think the reality is that the cost of the OAS program will increase dramatically. It will increase to such a point that it will not be sustainable, and we can see that by the numbers we have seen for years, which is that we are going to be in a situation, if we continue, that by 2030 there will be two taxpayers for every senior, down from what they are today, which is four, so a doubling of the burden on the same number of taxpayers, in essence. I think that is substantially more than it was 20 years ago; I think there were 8 or 10.
There's no question something needs to be done. I think most western democracies have done this, and they've done this because it's absolutely necessary. Anybody who doesn't see the writing on the wall is clearly playing politics, in my mind, and not dealing with reality.