The federal government made a commitment to better understand the needs of seniors when they created a new minister for seniors.
What we found was that Employment and Social Development Canada, which supports that minister, isn't using information that's out there to better understand the needs of seniors to determine whether federal programs are filling the gap or if they need to be adjusted.
We did look at one of the significant programs that ESDC administers, which is the old age security program, and you're right that there are parts to it. There are the basic old age security payment and the guaranteed income supplement that sits above that for even lower-income seniors.
While we see a lot of analysis about the guaranteed income supplement—we see it being adjusted during the pandemic to reflect that COVID relief might have been given to some seniors—there's very little analysis of the basic old age security payment that most seniors are receiving.
An important factor is that it's adjusted every year for inflation based on the consumer price index, but the analysis done by the government was very weak about whether or not seniors are experiencing a different rate of inflation than what's reflected in the consumer price index, because it represents the average household. We think a better analysis needs to be done to understand if this income support program, which is one of the largest programs of the federal government, is actually meeting the financial needs of seniors.