Going back to protecting retirement resources, it's critical that pensioners be protected. It's not right that Nortel and Sears pensioners in the U.S. had their pensions virtually all protected, while Canadians, especially those outside of Ontario, lost significant parts of their retirement resources.
On the call for investor protections, Canada lags behind other OECD countries. We pay some of the highest investment costs in the world and have some of the fewest investor protections.
Finally, create a single complaints body for all financial issues, as is done in the U.K. Our fragmented system makes it incredibly difficult for seniors who have been wronged to seek and obtain financial restitution.
For more information, I refer you to CARP's submission on retirement security as part of the federal pension consultation.
Turning to abuse prevention, protect seniors by amending PIPEDA. This is the personal privacy protection legislation. Banks currently are precluded from protecting women, due to technical problems with the legislative wording. Review OAS and GIS eligibility for older immigrant women who have no financial support and are at risk of abuse by family members.
Turning to housing, make retirement resources go further by supporting innovative housing options for seniors, such as co-housing and home sharing. Address housing as a commodity. Widespread empty units should not coexist with low rental vacancy rates and high rent costs. Regulate Airbnb and other programs that take viable housing stock and rental stock out of the market and contribute to seniors homelessness.
Laura, I'll go over to you.