Madam Speaker, last election we made a promise to seniors over 75. Budget 2021 proposes to introduce legislation that will increase regular OAS payments for pensioners 75 and over by 10% in July 2022, and it will increase every year that follows. This August, a one-time $500 payment will be made to seniors 75 and older; 3.3 million seniors will benefit by the promise we made.
This budget also supports seniors by providing $3 billion over five years to ensure national long-term care standards. This is over and above previous commitments.
For example, we saw one-time payments to seniors over 65 last summer. Prior to the pandemic, shortly after our first election, we increased dramatically the guaranteed income supplement, which literally took hundreds of seniors in Winnipeg North out of poverty.
We care about our seniors.