Thank you, Mr. Chair
Welcome, everybody, and thank you for your testimony.
I'm going to start with the Canadian Centre for Elder Law.
On the question of elder care or our greying population, obviously our government has done a number of things to help these individuals out. We increased the guaranteed income supplement by almost $1,000. We reversed the old age security and GIS eligibility after the Conservatives had put it to 67, and we reversed it to 65. We still have the seniors benefit index we're working on that was in our platform. We've done a number of things to help seniors out. I would love for you to comment on that one.
One of the things I would like to see maybe in the future—because we've also enhanced the CPP, which is going to be a great thing for future generations—is the potential for changing, in the next go-around on the CPP discussions, the 60% to 100% level, which would allow, if your spouse passes away, your benefits to go from 60% to 100% of the other spouse, but still maintain the cap. That has been talked a lot about as a very effective measure in the future to reduce poverty for seniors.
Can you comment on that?