The best way to protect vulnerable seniors is not to have any in the first place. If we can take steps right now to improve financial security and health for individuals to make sure that they reach retirement healthy and financially secure, that will greatly improve how things happen in the future—for example, making sure that we have affordable housing for everybody; that we have walkable cities; that we invest in world-class transit so that people can age in place; that we create building codes so that seniors don't have to relocate because they aren't able to age in their homes, but instead homes all have walk-in showers, corridors that are wide enough for strollers and wheelchairs, and for larger homes, large closets, so that elevators can be easily installed in later life.
We need to look at other programs, and certainly at the CPP enhancements. While CARP is very pleased that something has happened for CPP, it seems that more could be done; particularly the CPP coverage for our lowest-income seniors is something we could address.
We can take a look at incenting individuals to stay in the workforce longer. When people are close to retirement, often they're wondering, “Should I try to save more? Should I try to spend less? Should I work longer?”, when the only effective alternative is to work longer. Yet our CPP and OAS don't increase past age 70, and there are disincentives to work past age 65 for CPP, unless you aren't a full contributor. If somebody isn't pulling down RRIF income from an RRSP they've accumulated and is still working, there's a double-whammy of tax that we need to address.
I think there is fundamental legislation that we can put in place—certainly pension protection, certainly better investor protection. It makes no sense that Canadian investors pay some of the highest fees in the world.
Those are all fundamental changes that we could make to help Canadians reach retirement with more security.