The whole idea of this proposal, as Ms. Tassi mentioned before, is to provide income security to seniors, but also to encourage and support them when they work. The big difference here is that for those who already work a bit—those who work part-time, for example—this will mean they will keep a lot more of their GIS than they did before. Before, after $3,500, they were clawed back at either 75% or 50%, depending on where they were, on every dollar they were earning. Now they will have an exemption on the first 50%, and they will be clawed back on the remaining 50%.
To give you an example, for the maximum, which is in the zone of about $15,000 per year, for a single senior this is about $4,000 more in their pocket at the end of the year. That's pretty substantial.
We were talking about poverty before. Most seniors right now are not living in poverty, but they are barely above the official poverty line. With this measure they're going to move quite a bit higher and have more than a modest standard of living, in our view, so it will really improve their lives. We're looking at the threshold of poverty, but we're also looking above the threshold at people who are only just above it. For those people it will be quite helpful.
Again, for those who are not working now because they fear they're going to get a clawback on their benefits, this may change their decision and they may want to participate. As the minister was mentioning, when we do round tables about social inclusion, often we see that for seniors who want to stay partially in the labour market, it has helped them to live better and healthier and longer. We hope this measure will have an effect on these people.