Status of Women Committee on March 27th, 2007

[Daniel Braniff]

I have just a personal comment. I'm 76 and have been retired for 21 years. I can tell you that I've worked harder in the volunteer sector than I've ever worked. I think people are going to have to work longer and perhaps get paid for it.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

We arrive at the same conclusion in the report. We propose that retirement age be increased, as we have seen happen in some other countries.

Do you have any questions, Nicole?

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you for joining us, Mr. Braniff, Mr. Wilson.

I listened closely to your proposals to set up pilot projects in two different ridings and I found your suggestions to be quite interesting. My riding would be an ideal location for one of the two pilot projects because it is home to twenty or so seniors homes. The riding is home to between 12,000 and 15,000 seniors age 65 and over. Of this total, 38% are over the age of 75 years. It would truly be an ideal choice.

Earlier, you mentioned the age at which individuals must convert their RRSPs into RRIFs. You stated that women should be allowed to convert their funds at a later age, that is around 76 years of age, if I read your document correctly. Every week in my riding, we celebrate the birthday of someone who has reached the age of 100, or more. Last week, we even celebrated a person's 106th birthday. Shouldn't this age limit be raised even further? The problem is that many of the people we meet these days, including men, are between the ages of 90 and 95. They retired at 65, confident that they had enough savings to live comfortably until their death. However, they were still very much alive at 75, 80 and 85. Now, at the age of 90, they have exhausted their savings. Interests rate were so low that they were forced to draw on their capital. They are now in dire straits because they have no other source of income. They don't realize that they can get help from the community, because they have never needed it before. Now, they are too old to ask for help.

Do you not think that the age limit should be increased even further, maybe up to 80 years of age, not just for women, but for men as well?

[Daniel Braniff]

I agree, and I think I can use myself as an example. I've been retired for 21 years and I ski 80 days a year. I'm probably as fit as many people much younger than me.

As far as planning for longer living and possibly the cost of doing so, we need to do more in general education in preparing people for this. This is a blind side. If somebody's planning that they're going to die at a certain age, that's pretty ridiculous. That's my personal comment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Would you like to add anything, Mr. Wilson?

[Ken Wilson]

I fully understand the issue of people running out of their funds, and anything that can be done to ameliorate that would be wonderful. I'm not sure I have any solutions to that.

I think Dan's on the right track about an education process. It doesn't help seniors now, that's the problem. We should be making sure that people in the system are educated enough so they can prevent that problem in the future.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

We will now go on to Mr. Guergis for seven minutes.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Mister?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Sorry. Why did I think you were a Mister? And in that leather outfit--no way.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

No worries. At least you got the pronunciation right, and that's what I appreciate.

To both of you, I really appreciate your coming in here today to be with the committee. I know one of you a little more personally than the other, as Dan is from my riding of Collingwood.

Dan, going back to when I was first elected as an opposition member, I remember when you came knocking on my door. We had a great discussion about pension income splitting then, and came up with some ideas on how we could further that cause. I'm not going to go into great detail about that, but I do want to say that I enjoyed working with you very closely on that. And I understand, from your reputation in the riding, that this is not the only issue you've seen success on, that pretty much anything you put your mind to do you accomplish.

I have a suggestion for our ladies around the table: if we want to see something done, we can hand it to Dan, because maybe he can help us get what we're looking for.

Also, Ken, I appreciate the good work you've done on pension income splitting.

Bottom line, I take it that both of you very much support the government's initiative on pension income splitting and that you really want to see this go forward. If you would just clarify for us, in a little bit more detail, the financial benefits for seniors of this pension income splitting, I would really appreciate it.

With respect to vulnerable senior women in our society, my experience working with seniors goes back to when I was a political staff person with the Province of Ontario, sitting on a seniors policy committee. I heard often about seniors--the majority of them women, because they live longer--who were taken advantage of by perhaps a family member or someone close to them. A lot of their valuables and such had been taken from them, perhaps stolen and sold off, and they were left in a very vulnerable position.

Dan, in some of your suggestions you talk about seminars and options and ideas for women to become more educated on what we can do for them, what people can do to help make them aware. Would you think this would be a benefit, the idea of making them aware of what's available to them if they're ever caught in such a situation? I know some of the changes we've made with Status of Women Canada, some of the applications that could be made to provide seminars for women within the community on specific issues.

I'm asking you to comment on that, I guess, but I'm also letting you know that within your circles, you can spread the message that it is available if there's interest in providing these kinds of seminars, giving some of the great information you have specific to pension income splitting and further details for senior women. That is available for all of your pension organizations and your senior organizations; I think you said there were 23. So that would be an opportunity for you there. And if you have any comments on that, great.

I also found very interesting your comment about when we raised the age limit for RRSPs from 69 to 71. The gender-based suggestion of a higher age for women is very interesting. We've had a lot of conversations around gender-based analysis at this table, so I think that's an interesting approach. We may hear it very often, but still it can get missed in many different conversations. I found it very interesting.

As well, Dan--sorry if the questions are going more to you, but that comes from knowing you a little bit more personally--I understand you were the founding president of the Canadian aboriginal business association. Perhaps you could give us a little bit of information on the role you played there, specific to women, and how you think some of the ideas you've taken from there can benefit us around this table. I understand the former Prime Minister was on that board with you as well.

Please go ahead.

[Daniel Braniff]

That's a lot. Thank you very much, Helena.

In polls, 70% of the population of Canada support pension splitting. That goes way beyond the people who are eligible. In fact, I think the poll reported that it was the most popular legislation that had been put forward or announced since before Chrétien.

In terms of where the support came, I don't understand politics that well; I confess to that. That's why I can be so non-partisan. You'll forgive me. There hasn't been one politician I've talked to on a one-to-one basis who didn't agree with pension splitting. In October 2005 I had a conversation with Paul Martin. He set up a meeting with Tony Ianno, and we were well on the way to getting this discussion going when somebody called an election. I don't know where the Liberals stand today. It's very difficult to know, but I have had personal calls. I have had calls from Jim Peterson, for instance, saying the Liberal Party supports this. It's hard for me to know exactly how that's happening, but I trust that it's happening, because today there's going to be a vote.

The idea of doing a gender-based thing appeals to me. It makes sense, because it corrects for some wrongs over the years.

What I'm saying in some of my stuff has not been necessarily a consensus, even at CARP, because they had a little trouble with reverse discrimination. I don't have that problem—and they can't fire me because I'm a volunteer. There would be some discussion, as there will be, I suspect, in the rest of society, but the one thing they will do is put that force, 400,000 strong, behind the idea of doing seminars and getting people out. They have a magazine that's read by one million people, most of whom are people who are 50-plus. So that could be the focus, and they could take this on.

I've talked to financial institutions, who would be only too pleased to get involved in these seminars—for somewhat their own purposes, of course, but they're pleased to do that.

You mentioned the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business. I trust that's not an unfamiliar name to you, but I was the founding president back in 1986. And yes, Paul Martin was on that board, and Murray Koffler, Edward Bronfman, and quite a few others you'd recognize. A basic thrust of that was to bring economic development to native people. On reserve was the primary target, but off reserve as well. I found—if we had time to discuss—that the potential in there for females was incredible. For one thing, I found it much easier to get them to move.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you. You will get an opportunity to continue on with your thought processes.

Ms. Mathyssen for seven minutes.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much for being here today.

I have a number of questions. I'd like to start with the chart that you've provided. I found it very interesting. If you look at the top of the chart, you'll see that a couple with a combined income of $22,000 doesn't benefit at all from income splitting, but if you go down to the bottom, the couple with the combined income of $112,000 do reasonably well, with a benefit of about $8,500.

This is of interest to me for a number of reasons, but primarily because, when I think about the senior years, I think about the importance of quality of life. That disparity in terms of income seems to me to undermine that quality of life for a significant sector. I wonder if you could comment on how we address that group that doesn't have any opportunity to benefit from the changes that are being made in terms of pension splitting.

And I ask you to comment in terms of the fact that, in this budget, despite the fact that there is income splitting, there is nothing to address some of the issues around seniors' needs and quality of life, such as pharmacare, such as affordable housing, affordable home care, available long-term care or palliative care, and recreational and training opportunities. There is nothing there. What do we say to those people who are at the bottom, who simply don't have the kind of income that would give them the quality of life that they've earned?

[Daniel Braniff]

I think it's his numbers.

[Ken Wilson]

Basically, as far as CAPS is concerned, we entered into this discussion looking at pension splitting as a matter of fairness; that is, that people drawing the same income would end up paying different rates of tax, just because of the way the income was split. We thought that unfairness had to be addressed. Whether that in fact addresses all of the issues you have raised around the table, I guess I can't speak to that specifically, but I can say that if you don't address simple, obvious issues on fairness like that, it may be difficult to undertake others.

So as far as I'm concerned, this one puts people earning the same amount of money in the same ballpark paying the same amount of tax, and I think that's the fairness issue we wanted to address.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

If you're saying that this is a start, do we need to go back now and take a look at that disparity and also address the issue with older single women, or singles, because they don't--

[Ken Wilson]

Absolutely. I think this is perhaps just a first step. It's a step that we banded together to try to resolve, but I don't think you can leave it there. I think it has to go further.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay. So we should pursue pharmacare and housing and home care, make sure that those things are available to ensure quality of life for seniors who have been left out in this first round.

[Ken Wilson]

I believe those things should be pursued. I also understand that there are economic reasons why they may not be able to be pursued as quickly as one would hope.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Perhaps, yes.

Currently the government provides only 11 months of retroactivity in terms of OAS/GIS and CPP. Should the government extend retroactivity on these payments? We know in Quebec, for example, they can go back five years when someone has been overlooked. Should we be giving that some thought?

[Daniel Braniff]

I think anything that's going to address that particular circumstance that would represent fairness would be correct.

To comment on the reasons that people might be on the bottom of the scale, for the most part that wasn't their fault, but we all know of circumstances where people have depleted their assets, perhaps because of overzealous families who have relied on them and helped to deplete their assets. And I think this is a matter of financial education, because especially widows, senior widows, are very vulnerable. They become dependent on the social contacts they have and the care they might be getting, and it could be that they're transferring assets they should be retaining. I think that's an educational thing.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Certainly there are a lot of people who don't have the assets because they just didn't have the earning power, and a lot of them certainly live in my riding.

Should the government eliminate the GIS clawbacks? Is that a good step?

[Daniel Braniff]

Well, pension splitting is going to do that in part, if you look at it. It's going to diminish the numbers of people who will be clawed back, at least on old age pension. I guess the GIS...I'm not an expert on that. I quite frankly can't answer that.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Now you mentioned, or I read--I can't recall which--that about 55,000 Canadians are missing out on their CPP retirement benefits, while in Quebec the comparable number is zero. I believe in reading through the briefs this morning that there was a recommendation that government agencies make sure they call through and actually talk to people and advise them of their situation.

The Canada Revenue Agency actually has volunteers and they come into my office. We have clinics for people who are trying to access their disability benefits and for folks who look at that maze of income tax documents and can't get beyond it.

Would some of that kind of activity, volunteers who are trained to help people through the maze, be more personable than the call through? A call through might be intimidating for seniors. Might we suggest that government do this?