Our major policy recommendations came out in this document, and it's called Pensions in Canada: Policy Reform Because Women Matter. I think the previous two speakers have given a good picture of why women matter.
The majority of retirees are women, partly because of differences in life expectancy between men and women. As men and women age, the proportion of men and women seniors decreases in that there are fewer men.
Currently, almost 50% of unattached women over 65 have incomes below the poverty line. The future for a large number of elder women today seems bleak. For example—and something that Alice and I decided when we were planning this was to give you sort of a personal idea of our experience with pensions and retirement—I just turned 65, and my first pension cheque will arrive at the end of this month. This pension cheque will be $812 for the old age pension and the GIS combined. And what little CPP I managed to gather through my working career is $290. You add those two amounts and it's $1,103, which is $13,236 a year, and I have two degrees. But I raised two children, and I stayed home to raise those two children, and in my fifties I had an illness that took me out of the labour market.
This is just to give you a real-life picture of how even an educated, experienced worker can end up with a very low retirement pension.
I guess that is my time.