That's an excellent question.
There was a bit of eyebrow-raising when we saw the announcement. It's great that we're recognizing that as we age, there are more expenses and that we're thinking about the group of Canadians who are 75 and older. They're more likely to have expenses for things like long-term care and things that challenge their ability to live independently, and we need to recognize that. However, if it had been my decision, I wouldn't have used the old age security mechanism to do that. I would have looked at the guaranteed income supplement.
In our original national seniors strategy, from prior to the 2015 election, we talked about poverty among older seniors and the importance of making sure that our guaranteed income supplement was better and fairer, especially for older women, because they're the ones who are most likely to suffer from late-life poverty. That was certainly a victory, because we saw some increases for single, especially older women as they aged and made improvements there.
As you said, the recent increases to old age security can benefit people with an income of $100,000 or more in older age. However, my bigger concern is the folks who are just making the guaranteed income supplement threshold. We need to think about better ways to support them.
Bridging this to the technology issues, one thing we worked on with Telus, for example, this past year was creating a new smart phone plan for only the 2.2 million seniors who are on the guaranteed income supplement. For only $25 a month, they get a smart phone during the pandemic. By doing that, they can use technology like the COVID Alert app and can participate in telemedicine and Zoom calls. This is, again, a way of thinking about how we bridge access to technology for low-income Canadians, not necessarily those who can afford it. That's where we're trying to challenge barriers with smart policy.