I came to that conclusion because it was brought to my particular attention. After doing fairly lengthy research and asking a million questions of our researchers at the parliamentary library and of pension experts across the country—the public service pension experts and everyone else—I looked at it this way: the simplification of allowing them to have both at age 65, without the reduction, would not only save money in the long run, in terms of administering it, but it would also show them that indeed, through the pension benefits, we can allow them a minor increase at age 65. A few hundred dollars, which is not all that much, is what we're talking about, but it means an awful lot to the men and women who serve.
I will give you just a couple of examples here.
At age 60, every person in the country who's retired can elect to take their CPP early, which means losing one-third of it right away. If you're a military or RCMP individual and your annuity is, say, $2,500, you can collect your CPP early. For example, just for argument's sake, say that two-thirds of a CPP benefit was $500. You get your $2,500 and your $500; there's no reduction from your annuity, no deduction at all. The deduction takes place at age 65--what you would have collected if you had started collecting at age 65.
So you get the $500 for the rest of your natural life, with whatever increases may happen with inflation, but the amount you lose is that what you would have received at age 65 is deducted from whatever your annuity is at the time. But you also get an increase, from old age security, which is to offset any kind of loss in this regard. My argument has always been that OAS should have nothing to do with your annuity and your defined Canada Pension Plan in this particular regard.
Also, the term “bridge benefits” has come up a lot. Just to let you know, Mr. Laval will be here on Thursday and will explain that in Manual AFN109001/ID001, according to him, the term “bridge benefits” was not even listed, and apparently the manual was never made available to service personnel. Mind you, I haven't seen this manual, but he will testify to this on Thursday.