But there's so much to tell you to make you aware of what the real situation is.
Again, I would like to thank you for inviting us, because it's an extremely important thing to be doing, looking at what senior women are facing these days.
I couldn't agree more with my colleague Sue Calhoun. The things she talked about are the things that we are also very concerned with.
Our committee started in early 2000, when we realized that poverty was a great issue. When we looked at housing, transportation, and all the various issues that affected senior women, we realized that poverty was at the base of it all and that we had to do something about it.
We were able, through the Status of Women, which gave us some funding, to do a good deal of research, and we produced several papers on what is happening to senior women. We've been engaged in similar work with the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University, which offered us an hour's program once a month where we talk about the issues that confront women. So we are making a dent in the knowledge factor around the Lower Mainland in particular.
We have a number of myths that face women and pensions. We have a paper on it, and I'm going to skip over it because I believe it will be distributed.
For me, on a personal note, I'd like to tell you that this is my third time around on what's happening to the status of women. In the sixties I was involved in the fight for women's equality, period--women's equality in the workplace, and the recognition of women, what they have actually accomplished, and what their role in society is.
In the eighties we had a long fight over the pay equity question. Pay equity is not universal. It is simply not universal. It's a great myth in this country that women have it good--they don't, not necessarily at all. The income gap, which is taken up by caregiving and taken up by child rearing and the rest of it, is a gap in the workplace. That translates into a gap in retirement. And it affects women mostly, because women outlive men.
Women Elders in Action doesn't share the belief that income security for senior women is no longer a concern. We believe that while inroads have been made, the situation for unattached senior women continues to need improvement. More importantly, current trends are destabilizing the promise of secure futures for today's waged women.
We have registered retirement savings plans. Particularly at this time of the year, everybody's talking about them. And they're not going to save the day for most Canadians. RRSPs, which seem to be society's preferred tools, are actually out of the reach of many citizens. They will not be the panacea for retirement income shortfalls for low-income individuals, who struggle to make contributions, if at all.
According to research done for the National Advisory Council on Aging, people with low incomes actually derive no advantage from investing in RRSPs. People with low incomes pay little or no income taxes during their working lives, so their tax breaks are minimal. If they are entitled to the GIS upon retirement, they will actually be penalized when they cash in their RRSPs, as these amounts will inevitably lead to a reduction in the GIS benefits. As well, other provincial and territorial income supplements of subsidized housing may also be diminished, which is a factor that we have to look at.
And there are several other complications on the horizon. We've observed that the U.S. and the U.K., as well as several European countries, have moved to raise the pension age to 67 or 68. Women 55 years and older are often at a very great disadvantage because if they lose their jobs at that particular point in time, they have a very hard time finding other jobs. And they often have to resort to very low-income, part-time, very precarious work.
We think that the Status of Women should be concerned about the number of single mothers and other unattached women who are living in poverty. Obviously these women, who have trouble making ends meet today, will not have the money to put into private pension plans for their future or have working incomes large enough to afford more than the minimal amount of Canada Pension Plan tomorrow.
WE*ACT confirms the points made by the National Advisory Council on Aging that to protect the financial security of women, we need—these are just some of the ideas—a substantial GIS increase, a substantial increase in low-cost housing, and mandatory pension splitting upon divorce to help improve conditions for senior women today and those facing retirement in the future.
We have a larger number of points to make, and we'd be very happy to share them with all of you. It's just unfortunate that my colleague Joanne Blake can't have the time she needs for her presentation.