Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and talk about an issue facing seniors. I can tell the member that Liberal members of Parliament have been very supportive of seniors in Canada through the years.
When I was first elected to Parliament, one of my colleagues had conducted a white paper on seniors in regard to how we could move forward as a political party. A number of years ago, I was sitting not far from where the member for Shefford is sitting today, when Stephen Harper was in Davos and made the decision to increase the age of retirement from 65 to 67.
To answer the question the hon. member has put to members of the Liberal caucus, I can assure her our response at the time was immediate. We understand and appreciate the retirement age of 65. The Prime Minister, when he was leader of the Liberal Party, made a very clear indication that we would restore the age of retirement back to 65. A number of months passed, and ultimately we were afforded the opportunity to form a government. One of the first actions of the Liberal government was to bring forward the change that reduced the age of retirement from 67 to 65.
We are also very aware of the issue of poverty, of having a fixed income with limited resources, and how we could help seniors living in poverty. Another initiative the government took up was to try to lift seniors out of poverty, which it did by making a dramatic increase to the guaranteed income supplement, the GIS. I believe seniors were going to receive an increase somewhere between $800 and $950 per year. That initiative alone literally lifted thousands of seniors out of poverty, including hundreds from my own constituency. As I pointed out, members of the Bloc voted against it. That is why I posed the specific question in regard to the GIS and how the Bloc voted back then. I think it is a valid question.
How do we maximize tax dollars to support our seniors? I believe it was a good decision back then to dramatically increase the guaranteed income supplement, and the numbers clearly show that we were right.
The member asked about the age of retirement being 65. As I say, we reduced it from 67 back to 65, and then we also went to work negotiating with provinces to deal with the CPP. Those in the workforce contribute in a very significant way, as all members of society, whether they are working or not, will ultimately contribute. We put an emphasis on increasing the CPP. To do that, unlike the previous government, we had to work it through a number of the provinces and build the support to do so. We were successful in doing that. A lot more people will be retiring in the coming years, and they will have better retirement savings as a direct result of actions we took nine years ago. That is another initiative the government has taken.
Going back to the fixed income issue, during the pandemic, as has been pointed out, there was a need to provide extra support for seniors. Liberal members of Parliament and others were hearing in their constituencies about the different types of benefits. We came out with all sorts of programs, but we came out with something separate and unique for seniors. We gave two amounts. One was for OAS and an additional amount was for seniors who were collecting GIS, in recognition of the issue of their finances. That was during the pandemic.
Then the election followed and the Liberal Party of Canada made it very clear, which we heard through representations in many different forms, that as people age, they often require additional needs, such as medical assistance. They may be more fragile, on average, as they age. Their savings may dwindle over time or their ability to earn additional income might be diminished, so the Liberal Party of Canada made an election platform commitment to deal with the three specific factors I just raised. We said we would increase, for those 75 and over, the OAS by 10% because of what I just indicated. Canadians were very much aware of it. Seniors were aware of it. We won the election and fulfilled that election commitment.
There have been huge investments to support seniors. For the dental program, the first people who were eligible to receive the dental benefit were seniors, and seniors in all regions of the country took advantage of that program, as they should. That was the purpose of the program, contrary to what members opposite might say. One of the biggest factors in developing the dental program was seniors, but the pharmacare program was also important. When we think of diabetes and the costs related to it, seniors will benefit from that.
As a government, we have made tangible commitments to deal with long-term health care facilities, and we are working with different levels of government to improve those conditions. We have made investments in housing to both non-profit agencies and different levels of government. We have come up with enhanced financing for support programs such as the New Horizons for Seniors and other organizations that support seniors.
The bottom line is that, from day one until today and going forward, I can assure members of the Bloc, Canadians and others that the government is very much in tune with the needs of seniors, and we will continue to look at ways to support them. That is the way we started, and I can assure the members opposite that we will continue that going forward.