Madam Speaker, I am very happy to join in the debate today and to support the motion put forward by my colleague, the member for Charlottetown. It is a very important motion and one that has really seized many from my own riding and across the country.
Canada enjoys one of the lowest seniors poverty rates in the world. A large part of this success was the introduction of the old age security and guaranteed income supplement and Canada pension plan by Liberal governments in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Conservative government's plan to increase the OAS eligibility age from 65 to 67 is a regressive move at a time when the number of low-income seniors in Canada is on the rise. In fact, the numbers have doubled between 2007 and 2009. This move will force thousands of poor, vulnerable seniors, including women and disabled people who depend on OAS and GIS to keep them out of poverty, to wait two more years and forgo over $30,000 in payments. Seniors groups, poverty groups and disability groups have all taken issue with the OAS change and how it will adversely affect the poor people they represent.
The Council of Canadians with Disabilities points out that Canadians with disabilities disproportionately live in poverty. Between 45% and 60% of those living on provincial social assistance programs are persons with disabilities. Increasing the entitlement age for OAS and GIS will keep these people living in poverty for two years longer than necessary.
Women also will be disproportionately affected. They receive fewer Canada pension benefits than men, leaving them with less income at 65. Statistics Canada reports that 18% of women living alone over the age of 65 are indeed living in poverty. A 2009 report prepared by the human resources department was very clear in stating that over 35% of women between 65 and 69 would fall below the poverty line without OAS or GIS.
These facts should be telling the government that we have to do more, not less, to assist low-income seniors.
Maybe the government will silence its critics and release a national poverty strategy that would ensure low-income seniors, such as women and the disabled, do not fall between the cracks with the change in this eligibility. Could it be that the government would finally implement some strategies and recommendations made by a number of reports on poverty in the last few years, including the Senate's report, “In From the Margins: A Call to Action on Poverty, Housing and Homelessness”, or the House's own report, “The Federal Poverty Reduction Plan: Working In Partnership Towards Reducing Poverty in Canada”? These are both very well-respected reports. Maybe it could be the National Council on Welfare's own report, “The Dollars and Sense of Solving Poverty”?
Sadly, I have to say no. The government's response to these reports is to disregard, discredit and then dismiss them. In the case of the National Council on Welfare, the government just did away with the organization completely.
The Conservative government has used nothing but false and misleading claims for its reason to change the eligibility. It says the program is unsustainable, but does not say what is sustainable. It says it needs to increase the age of eligibility to save OAS, but will not say how much the move will save. There is no information and no debate on an issue that will affect every Canadian that will be born from this day forward and every Canadian under the age of 54. Does this sound reasonable? Is this what one would expect from a government that claims to be open and accountable for its actions? From a reasonable government, yes; from the Conservative government, no. Killing debate, silencing opponents, shredding the truth and using propaganda to create fact from fiction are just par for the course, and it is no different with the OAS than it is with the F-35 scandal.
The government declares a crisis and paints an apocalyptic picture of OAS bankrupting the country if something is not done. One would expect, therefore, that it would introduce the age change immediately. In the face of this supposed impending crisis, this financial apocalypse, the government is going to wait 18 whole years before fully implementing the change. The Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development has said:
What we're going to do is make sure that people...have time to still prepare for our own retirement.
This may sound reasonable and sensible, but I would argue it is neither. The OAS crisis, the government argues, exists because the baby boomer generation will be a bulge that will cost the system progressively between now and 2030; however, what does not make sense is that the peak of this bulge is predicted to be, ironically, in 2031, at almost the same time the OAS change will take full effect. By that time, the cost train will have already left the station. The relative cost of OAS will actually start to decline soon after. In fact, the cost of OAS to GDP is projected to be lower by 2060 than it is today, so the measure will be largely ineffective. There is no crisis, just politics and fearmongering.
The delay in full implementation is also completely unreasonable to low-income people, who the Conservatives are basically saying need to save more for their own retirement or go on provincial welfare when they reach age 65. How insulting to the over half million working Canadians who live below the poverty line. How do the Conservatives expect these people who barely get by week to week to save an additional $30,000? For people who are poor, knowing that they need to save and having the ability to save are two completely different things.
The Conservatives cite the fact that Canadians are living longer, but what they fail to realize is that the human body can only work at physically demanding jobs for so long. It is not that people working in these jobs do not want to work past 65, but that many people will not be able to do it physically.
As well, in 2006 the government's Chief Actuary found that the average life expectancy at 65 of people receiving GIS is much shorter than the life expectancy of those too rich to receive OAS. He found that for men, poorer seniors are dying four and a half years earlier than the rich. For women, the difference is three and a half years. Reducing effective retirement years by two will be far more punishing on the poor than the rich.
Although the government has not produced any evidence that OAS is not sustainable, independent experts have studied the issue and have reported that it is. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page, in his report earlier this year, said that the federal fiscal structure “...now has sufficient room to absorb the cost pressures arising from the impact of population aging on the federal elderly benefits program.”
A recent report prepared by OECD states:
The analysis suggests that Canada does not face major challenges of financial sustainability with its public pension schemes.
It goes on to say:
There is no pressing financial or fiscal need to increase pension ages in the foreseeable future.
The Conservatives say other countries are raising their retirement, so we must do the same, a sort of monkey see, monkey do approach. They cite many countries that have raised their retirement age. What they fail to mention is that several of these countries are increasing their retirement age to below or equal to Canada's current age. For example, France is increasing minimum age from 60 to 62. As well, some of these countries allow for early retirement at reduced benefits. The United States allows early retirement at 62.
Finally—and I think this is critical—although countries like the United States and the U.K. have a higher retirement age, their public pension systems cost relatively more now than Canada's system will ever cost over the next 50 years. According to a 2011 OECD report on pensions, the U.S. system in 2007 cost 6% of their GDP and the UK system cost 5.9%; ours is 2.34%.
This is just another attack on those most vulnerable in our society, those most vulnerable Canadians. I very much support the motion put forward by my colleague from Charlottetown and I will be voting in favour of the motion.