discussion: Income and Benefits

Need for Pensions and Benefits

Policies by all levels of government over the past ten years have not benefited seniors as a group.
There is no poverty line, only income lines to guide policy.
Canada appears to have accepted that making a profit is the primary goal of policy-setting and evaluating those policies.
The main policy goal of the past decade was deficit reduction. Now that the federal deficit is gone, the goal is: "We shall never have a deficit again!"

Tax cuts in Ontario have reduced much-needed services for seniors, resulting in an overall loss.
GST/PST put a disproportionate burden of taxes on lower income people. There is an urgent need to cut GST and PST.
"Simplifying" federal income tax to 3 tax brackets in 1980s means taxes begin at 17%. This is too high, and should be lower.
20% clawback of pensions
Federal government took billions out of health care, leaving the provinces strapped.
De-indexing and seniors benefits plans abandonned by the federal government, after considerable protest. Still, indexing does not kick in until 3% over inflation (i.e., if inflation is 4%, pensions are raised 1%). This is resulting in a LOSS of pensions.
Bracket creep is a problem for seniors paying taxes (not raising brackets to match inflation).

Universality is all but gone, with the taxing back of OAS (at $53,000 you no longer receive OAS).
All young people are being taught that they will have to look out for themselves when they are seniors. CPP funds are held separately now, so this should not be accurate. This was a deliberate scare by financial insititutions that wished to destroy CPP. "This is immoral."

The media is owned by wealthy people. There is an editorial bias in how money should be distributed. The media is quite ageist. The problem is that "if you don’t have access to the media, you don’t have freedom of speech." There is a strong need for alternative, more objective, sources of information.

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