Mr. Speaker, I thank the House for allowing me to speak with unanimous consent. This is very important to low-income seniors across the country, but extremely important to me as well.
While the Minister of Seniors provided a lot of important context on the urgency of this bill and the merits of passing this motion, I want to add a few points of support that hon. members can consider as we move forward.
First, I would like to acknowledge that I am joining the debate on the traditional territory of the Mi'kmaq people here in beautiful Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. I am here to discuss government business no. 7, which would expedite Bill C-12, an act to amend the Old Age Security Act. In short, this bill would exempt pandemic relief benefits from the calculation of the guaranteed income supplement or allowance benefits beginning in July of 2022.
I would like to explain why we are proposing this amendment and I hope that hon. members will see the urgency and the merit of rapid adoption.
As hon. members know, we put in place the Canada emergency response benefit, CERB, and the Canada recovery benefit, CRB, to help people at the height of the pandemic, and the financial sector has confirmed that these benefits have helped families avoid catastrophic income loss. However, we also know that these benefits were counted as income and had an impact on some of our most low-income seniors. This is happening because eligibility for the GIS and the allowances is based on how much net income an individual earned the previous year.
Since the CERB and the CRB are taxable, they can and do impact GIS eligibility. Unfortunately, that meant that some GIS and allowance recipients may now be facing lower benefit payments because of the income they received from these pandemic benefits. We recognize that some seniors were facing significant challenges as a result of this and we needed to move quickly to rectify the situation.
In the 2021 economic and fiscal update, our government committed $742 million for one-time payments to support seniors who were experiencing hardship because of this. I want to tip my hat to the minister for this because I know how hard she worked and how determined she was to get that in the economic and fiscal update. GIS and allowance recipients who received CERB or the Canada recovery benefit in 2020 will get help. We are going to compensate seniors for their loss of GIS or allowance benefits, and we are going to make it simple. Seniors would not need to take any action to receive the one-time payment. They will receive it automatically, in the same way that they receive their GIS or allowance benefits.
This automatic one-time payment will support those who saw a loss of GIS or allowance by compensating them for the full annualized loss amount. However, we did not just want to provide a quick fix. Instead, we wanted to ensure that seniors will not be facing a loss or a reduction in benefits again.
That is why we introduced this bill. Bill C-12 would exempt federal pandemic benefits from the calculation of GIS or allowance benefits beginning in July. This bill speaks directly to the needs of seniors that have been raised by members on every side of this House. Once again, we are proposing this crucial change to the Old Age Security Act to ensure that this problem never happens again. To do so, we have a very short window of opportunity at a very busy time of the year. We must have royal assent on Bill C-12 by March 4 to guarantee that this takes effect as of July 1.
Going forward, GIS and allowance recipients who received pandemic benefits will not experience any loss or reduction in their future benefits. This is something that should resonate with all members, and we have heard from so many members that it has and that they care about seniors in their communities. This will automatically prevent this from happening again to constituents.
These proposed measures are just a few of the many activities that we have undertaken, both before COVID struck and in the two years since. Indeed, the well-being of seniors has been a priority for our government since 2015. In 2016, we increased the GIS for nearly 900,000 low-income seniors. As a result of this and other government initiatives, an estimated 45,000 seniors were lifted out of poverty between 2015 and 2019. We also put thousands of dollars back in the pockets of future seniors by restoring the age of eligibility from 67 to 65 for GIS benefits and the old age security pension.
Then, when the pandemic hit, we stepped up to protect the most vulnerable among us, including seniors. To help seniors cover increased costs by COVID-19, we provided a one-time, tax-free payment of $300 for those eligible for the OAS pension and an additional $200 for OAS pensioners who were eligible for the GIS. We also provided a special top-up payment through the GIS credit in April 2020. More than four million low- and modest-income seniors benefited from this top-up, which gave an average of $375 for single seniors and $510 for couples.
Our Government of Canada will also increase the OAS pension by 10% for older seniors aged 75 and over. As a first step, we have provided a one-time payment of $500 to the OAS pensioners who will be aged 75 or over as of June 30, 2022, to help meet their immediate financial needs. In July 2022, the OAS pension will be permanently increased by 10% for seniors aged 75 and over. That increase will provide an extra $766 to full pensioners in the first year and improve the financial security of seniors later in life.
These are just some of the supports that our government has provided to improve the lives and financial situations of Canadian seniors. We continue to search for ways to improve our supports and services for seniors, and we will listen to all members who have suggestions.
During the pandemic, we focused our support on people. We put in place the CERB and the Canada recovery benefit to help people at the height of the pandemic. We helped millions of Canadians pay the bills and put food on the table with this support. However, we also know that it is now having an impact on some of our most vulnerable and we are taking action today to deal with that.
This bill is focused on dealing with this issue on a go-forward basis. We need all members' support to make that happen quickly. With Bill C-12, we would make an important legislative change that would provide seniors with peace of mind and certainty in knowing that they will not face any undue financial hardships if they continue to access pandemic benefits in the future. We hope they will not have to, but we committed to being there for Canadians as long as it takes. The pandemic has highlighted the many challenges facing our most vulnerable seniors. We have done a lot, but it is an area where we still have more to do.
The minister and I will continue to be available throughout this process to talk about this bill. We have already spoken to many members in the House about this. I know that all members here have expressed that they want to solve this issue in exactly the way this bill would do. All parties have suggested that.
Therefore, we should put politics aside and put people first in this case. Canadians expect that much of us when it comes to low-income working seniors who need this worry taken away. Let us support these most vulnerable seniors by quickly passing this bill, through this motion.