Human Resources Committee on Oct. 17th, 2017

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you again to all the witnesses.

Time and again we heard witnesses who really wanted to say that there are many provincial differences across the nation in respect to their benefits and services. Up until 2015 there was still one-stop information. You had the map of the whole nation and you clicked. If you moved your senior from B.C. to Ontario, the benefits would be very different. If you clicked Ontario—you moved your mom to Ontario—then you would know that the services and benefits there would be different. Also for cities, if you moved your mom from Ottawa to Vancouver, then the kinds of services would be different.

I'm asking, and whoever wants to comment on this may, do you think there should be one-stop information for all the caregivers and non-profit organizations? Unfortunately, that was taken away in August by the current government. I just want you to comment on the importance of having all this information within one stop.

Who would like to comment on that?

Irene.

[Irene Sheppard]

I live the reality of trying to have one-stop information just in this province and keep it accurate. It is so burdensome that I can't even imagine trying to do it for the entire country, even though I think it's a wonderful blue-sky idea. If we can do a good job within a province and every province does it, I think that's a good start.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond Centre, BC]

In fact, the FPT forum—the federal, provincial and territorial forum—for ministers for seniors actually got together and designed this. Then all the provinces said yes, they would give input, but now their input is gone. That is why I asked this question, which is so crucial for our caregivers, for our non-profit organizations, just to say.... I'm just asking whether the government should get that system back to help us all.

How much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

It's a little less than a minute.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond Centre, BC]

Okay.

Mr. Warawa, do you want to ask one more question?

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Yes.

How do we help our seniors plan so that they don't have to wait for a crisis but can actually plan to make sure that their homes are capable of letting them age in place?

Irene.

[Irene Sheppard]

Work has happened on this, but we need to make it a lot simpler and more accessible for seniors and their family members to understand what kinds of physical environments or aspects make it easy and how to arrange their lives. We just need to do a think tank and create some simple documentation and categorization of this and spread it. But it's not a “just”; you still have to do the work. I think, however, that the information is there. We need people to pull it together.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

Now we go over to MP Morrissey for four minutes.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

Being a newcomer to the committee, I'm intrigued by the motion that you're studying, because one of the items that surprised me in the 2015 election campaign was the amount of financial distress among single seniors and the way government reacts to it.

My question is for Mr. Veall.

I would like your thoughts on how government can provide more benefits for seniors working in the labour force, because that's an area that's growing. It's one that affects their health as well as their interacting. I'd like to hear your thoughts on how government can position things so that there's an incentive for seniors, say even on a part-time basis, in the workforce.

[Dr. Michael R. Veall]

There are many ways in which the government can, and I think there's also an issue as to the degree to which government should. Over the next, say, 20 to 30 years, there will be a reorientation, I think, in the system away from a standard retirement age of 65, even though there are going to be people who will need to access the system at that age, and even younger than that, for reasons of health and who need to be protected.

What needs to change is a kind of focus, instead of on 65, on older ages. This has been achieved in other countries, but there doesn't seem to be progress yet in Canada.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

You did not address how you can make it more attractive for seniors to—

[Dr. Michael R. Veall]

Well, if you choose to make it more attractive, there are always tax incentives you can provide. You can say to individuals that if you earn income at a certain age, you don't have to pay as much tax on it. You can change the nature of the GIS system so that less of the money is taken from people as they work. Those are all options.

I personally dislike the parts of the GIS system which take 75¢ on the dollar rather than 50¢ on the dollar, which is more or less the standard rate: 75¢ on the dollar seems to be a very great disincentive to work.

[Bobby Morrissey, Liberal, Egmont, PE]

Thank you.

This question is for Ms. Sheppard.

In your opening statements, you covered a number of areas. One that you discussed briefly was the role of the unpaid caregiver. I would like more of your thoughts on it.

Again, government has a suite of programs that look at family members taking time off to stay with seniors, but this is more long term. Could you expand a bit more on where you would like to see the government move towards recognizing unpaid caregivers more?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

A very brief answer, please.

[Irene Sheppard]

I think there are some programs for the short term—intensive—but when you are an unpaid caregiver over three, four, five years, there aren't as many supports for that. That would be an area to look at.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Excellent, thank you very much.

Over to MP Rachel Blaney for the final word.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

I'm going to come back to you, Jane.

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada offers many great packages of information and services. How, as parliamentarians, can we best help you reach more people?

[Jane Rooney]

Well, thank you very much for the offer.

We have information on everything for everyone. Because every person makes a financial decision every single day of their lives, it's important for us to package information. We have articles that you can disseminate through your householders, for example.

We will be launching Financial Literacy Month, which is the month of November, here on the Hill. One of the MPs who's hosting is Brenda Shanahan.

We will be distributing some householder kits at that event. During Financial Literacy Month, we have more material to help support you and your constituents, to help them live within their means, find information on budgeting—a key component of being financially literate—and feel in control of their money.

We have tools, tips. There's a one-stop shop database that points to information we have in the federal government, but also workshops and events being held by others, potentially within your riding. We promote events throughout the month of November and the year that are happening in everyone's riding, in terms of helping people learn how to budget, manage their money, and plan and save.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I'm curious. You talked earlier about working around the volunteer tax support.

One of the challenges in ridings like mine is that they are very remote and rural, and often we have small communities that don't have any volunteers you can access to help those low-income people.

Taking that into consideration, do you have any strategies in mind for increasing that in rural and remote communities, and also expanding that to some of those workshops? Especially with the senior population, one thing we find is that people are not accessing those services because they're not on paper. They're not being presented by someone they trust, and then they're not getting those services.

[Jane Rooney]

The approach we're taking at FCAC.... We're a very tiny government agency, so we do print materials and disseminate through community-based organizations or others.

Through my national steering committee, one member is the executive director of the family resource programs. She has 500 organizations, I believe, within 2,500 communities. They're community hubs that have workers who can provide simple information. They're not professionals in financial planning, but they can certainly be a conduit to the community to provide information.

The other thing is that while we at FCAC don't run the community volunteer income tax program, we work with CRA. CRA received expanded funding last year, in the realm of about $4 million a year. That's allowed them to expand the volunteer income tax programs to many communities.

They're also working with partners. Again on my national steering committee, the chartered professional accountants.... These accountants have 11,000 volunteers across Canada, including the remote communities. They volunteer to do income taxes. They offer workshops for financial literacy programs.

There are ways of partnering with organizations to expand access to income tax so that people can get access to the benefits, but also get that financial education training so they can set aside savings for emergencies, plan for their future, and pay down debts.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

I have only 10 seconds.

Fraud is important. I understand you talked about training the bank tellers.

One of the things we're seeing in our ridings is that seniors are being attacked. The people on the phone are saying to them that if they call or let anyone know, they'll know. We've actually heard of them staying on the phone while they're calling family members to send them thousands of dollars.

I'm wondering about educating seniors that that is not how CRA works, or that is not how financial institutions or the government work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

A very quick answer, please.

[Jane Rooney]

There are some very terrible scams, phishing types of scams.

We do consumer alerts, and through our partners and social media, we try to raise awareness with consumers so that they identify and understand that those are bad, those are scams, that CRA doesn't work in that fashion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

I'm going to give MP Blaney a 10-second window to ask a quick question.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Mr. Veall, can you elaborate on keeping the GIS at 65, and the raising of the OAS, the benefit?

Do you see it as a win-win for seniors and the government?