Evidence of meeting #42 for Status of Women in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was older.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Okay, so we will get those. Thank you.
I want to know a little bit more about your organization, if I could. How many members do you have, and how does one join your organization? Is it open?
4:50 p.m.
Member of the Executive, Ontario Division, Canadian Pensioners Concerned Inc.
It's open to anyone. We have been around since 1969. We are a national organization. I was national president at one time. Our national president at the present time is in Prince Edward Island. We exist across the country. We are affiliated with a broad range of other organizations, from the Older Women's Network in Ontario to the National Pensioners and Senior Citizens Federation, which in turn has affiliates across the country.
We have difficulty in saying how many members we have, because through our affiliations there are thousands. I'm not going to spring how many; I couldn't possibly tell you, because our affiliates will say they have 150 and I have to trust them. Quite frankly, I don't know, but given that Costco in British Columbia, with which we are affiliated, has 75,000, I would say there will be thousands. It will vary from one province to the next.
Unfortunately, many seniors organizations are hitting trouble in terms of numbers. The new seniors are not prepared to beat their heads against a stone wall like we've done for years over issues of pensions and poverty. They tend to want to volunteer on a short-term project and get out. So all seniors organizations are increasingly looking at moving closer together and affiliating and joining, maybe amalgamating, in order to bring their numbers to strength. We're all facing problems of numbers.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Since 1969, I would venture that you have gauged old age pensions, so you must have quite a list of achievements, first of all, I suppose, but you also must have gathered a lot of information.
Have you made recommendations in the past?
4:55 p.m.
Member of the Executive, Ontario Division, Canadian Pensioners Concerned Inc.
We have, and we do it at every opportunity we've been given. We talk beyond pensions, of course, as I said in the little blurb I gave to the staff of the committee. We look increasingly at all age groups, which is one of the reasons I referred to single-parent mothers.
We have accumulated a lot of briefs. We've done it year after year. I've gone to the Senate and to the House of Commons. I've done briefs on health and pensions. You name it, we do it, because we care about issues that will improve the quality of life for seniors and other age groups in the community. Nationally and provincially, that's what we do.
We also do public education. We publish Viewpoint four times a year, which brings in articles, ideas, and copies of our briefs. And we have a website. We try to reach out.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Now, I always like those graphs. If you were to take a graph from 1969 and bring it up to your latest findings--maybe 2007--how have we been moving in the Canada Pension Plan? Do you see improvement? Do you see some improvement, and then a lack of improvement, and then some improvement again? How has the graph been moving? I'm curious to find out.
Second, in those areas where you've seen a decline, have you identified what the reason is? I'm sure you have. Can you respond to that?
4:55 p.m.
Member of the Executive, Ontario Division, Canadian Pensioners Concerned Inc.
In terms of benefits, again, let me go back. The Canada Pension Plan re-organized because of the attack on the whole idea of the Canada Pension Plan. Of course, that wonderful woman from Quebec went on to Parliament Hill. That was phenomenal. We were formed at the same time. We've argued for the increased use of the Canada Pension Plan. We argued for the changes in the investment plans of the Canada Pension Plan, because we saw it running out of money if it was all locked into funding provincial bonds and provincial funds at almost zero interest.
We have expressed great concern and interest in the Canada Pension Plan, but we also have recognized that, increasingly, many people can't contribute to CPP. They're in the marginal labour force. They don't really exist. It doesn't exist for them. So we are concerned now with looking at what can exist, which is old age security and the GIS, and of course, provincially, the GAINS program.
Those have taken up a great deal of interest for us, because we realize that there are limitations for people in their ability to contribute to the CPP. We praise it. We like the new investment strategy. Many people have criticized it, but we've supported it. We were asked to review it by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Review Board. They asked us to give them feedback on what they were doing, and we said we thought they were doing a good job. We have seen, to us, a steady improvement. Our concern is for those who don't have access or who have minimal access. We are concerned. It is a problem, and it's going to become an even bigger problem.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you very much, Ms. Kaegi. That will be the end of questions for today.
I want to thank you very much, on behalf of the committee, for taking the time to present and for spending all that time answering questions. Obviously you know your stuff. We want to thank you very much again.
5 p.m.
Member of the Executive, Ontario Division, Canadian Pensioners Concerned Inc.
Well, thank you for the opportunity. I really appreciated it.
5 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you.
Now, given what was originally discussed before the meeting, I'd like to have a motion to adjourn.