My sense is that Canada does reasonably well, as reflected in the numbers I read at the beginning of my opening. The poverty rate for seniors in Canada is well below the national average. Canada's old age security system—the entire system, not just the things covered in the act—has been extremely successful in helping seniors in reducing the poverty rate for seniors. Having said that, there are clearly some seniors who are in dire situations.
My answer to the second part of the question or the second part of the bill is that we would be better served by a more targeted, focused policy that tried to help seniors in need, rather than also helping high-income seniors. People like you and me don't need a little bit more money. I'd prefer—and I think you would prefer—some of that money being redirected towards people who are in need, and the second half of the current bill doesn't do that.
I think that's an issue that's being faced internationally as well. All countries are dealing with this trade-off between having broad, general programs that focus on a large percentage of society—in Canada, something like 95% or 96% of people over age 65 receive OAS—versus a targeted program like GIS. I think many countries are turning towards something like what Canada has, where you have a multi-stage program that focuses a lot of resources on people at the low end and some resources on people at the higher end, because you need political buy-in at the high end in order to support the entire program, in order to support the redistribution. I think what's happening internationally is that many people are dealing with the struggles we're dealing with with aging populations, and they are dealing with that trade-off between a broad, universal program, which is extremely expensive and taxes our fiscal capacity, versus more focused program, which helps people who are most in need.
In terms of the age of retirement, people are clearly healthier for longer and living longer, and many countries are moving towards an increased age of retirement in recognition of that. That's a decision that societies need to make about how much leisure—in some sense, how much free time—we want to offer seniors, not require of seniors. They can go on working if they want, obviously, but we offer it to seniors. Our society has been flip-flopping on that as an electorate and I don't think we've settled the question yet. We may end up doing something more like the U.K. in the future, or we may not.