Thank you.
I think it's important to address the challenges you're presenting. It's certainly the case that many Canadians are finding themselves in challenging situations, both during the course of their working lives and as they face the prospect of retirement.
Our approach has been, first and foremost, to work to improve the situation of middle-class Canadians and those trying to get into the middle class by taking some really important first steps. Reducing taxes for nine million middle-class Canadians we see as an important step in putting more money in people's pockets. The enhancement of the way we deal with child benefits helps many families—nine out of ten families with children—with the new Canada child benefit. We've taken some important steps during people's working lives.
We also recognize that there continue to be Canadians who are retired who are living in very difficult situations. While we've made progress over the last couple of generations in reducing the number of impoverished seniors, we still have people who are living in difficult situations. Our decision to increase the guaranteed income supplement, a top-up, helps hundreds of thousands of seniors living in difficult situations with up to $947 per year in additional funds. The decision to move the old age security age from 67 to where it had been, at 65, helps in particular those Canadians who are earning under the cut-off point at which OAS is clawed back, so it helps Canadians in more vulnerable situations.
With respect to the CPP enhancement, we recognize that this is something about the future. We are trying to ensure that our retirement system stays one of the most respected systems on the globe by ensuring that it remains fully funded. This enhancement that we've negotiated with the provinces will be fully funded. It will allow for no intergenerational transfers from one generation to the other by having the people who will get the benefit be the ones who put the money into it. Anybody who does put money into it will get some return from it, but as you correctly pointed out, the maximum return will be for those people who are in it for their entire career.
Our view is that we need to work on the short term by improving people's lives and on the longer term by making investments in the economy, investments in infrastructure, and investments in creating a more innovative and productive economy, and by trying to help people ensure that they save appropriately so they can have a secure and dignified retirement, which is what this is intended to do.