Old age security reform

waldo · January 30, 2012

He can't call an election, he brought in fixed 4 year term, so if he did do it, you'd be all over him for breaking that. Besides, people don't want elections at the drop of hat, we really want stability, so - gotta wait until the term is up.

does the Canada Elections Act still contain the wording, "Nothing in this section affects the powers of the Governor General, including the power to dissolve Parliament at the Governor General’s discretion.” ... you know, the hook Harper leveraged on Aug27-2008, to allow him to ignore his own Fixed Election Law... 15 months prior to the actual term limit? Is that wording still there in the Canada Elections Act?

Topaz · January 31, 2012

IF they are going to change OAS by age, then I against it but IF they do it by income, I'm for it. Again, this has to be thought out very carefully. In this down turn it has been mostly the middle-class who has be hit the worse and many of those are in the age bracket of 45-55 and if they aren't able to find full time jobs paying what tney were making before then they are going to need ALL benefits by 65. The Tories were talking about changes to CPP were you won't be able to get it until age 63 from age 60. They are also talking about making changes to the MP's pensions. In England, the MP's get only half of their pensions to what they used to and they also included the averaging their wages out of the time they have been a MP, towards their pensions, they don't take from their present wage. Lets see what THESE MP's decided.

cybercoma · January 31, 2012

There's absolutely no reason it shouldn't be by income. It's security. It should be meant to keep the elderly from falling below the poverty line, while considering the unique age-related expenses they're likely to have.

Keepitsimple · January 31, 2012

Lucky the Conservatives have the media and some of our posters to make it seem like these "changes" are going to cause Armegeddon for Seniors. They're all softening up the public who are now expecting drastic changes - "a war against the poor". When the changes come, they will be so mild in comparison that people will think "hey, that's not so bad at all - what was all the fuss about". And like many other "hot issues", the media and opposition will again seem like "The Boy who cried Wolf".

CPCFTW · January 31, 2012

In the system we have the PM can call an election any time to ask for a mandate for big policies. It was done for Medicare, it was done for OAS and CPP, why can't it be done here. It was done the past in OUR system, in fact it is why the PM can call an election anytime so when he does everything he has PROMISED in his PLATFORM he can go back to the people and present a new plan. Tommy Douglas did it all the time when he was Premier, once he was done with his MANDATE from PLANS he OUTLINED during ELECTIONS he would go to the people and present his new plan. He didn't just pretend less then a year after an election people gave him a mandate to do whatever he wanted like you seem to think we gave Mr. Harper.

We voted on a platform, Harper won on that platform and he had nothing in there about OAS. He can ask the Canadian people if he so thinks we support that change otherwise he can pound sand.

Actually it is you who can pound sand. Harper already got a mandate to do what he wants for the next 4 years. We are sick of lefty induced elections for every scandal you guys can manufacture.

Topaz · January 31, 2012

The HOT topic right now is the OAS but a article out today says Harper also touched the CPP and made 6 changes to it and not all of them are going to be accepted to some Canadians. Harper said that CPP didn't have any problems, yeah because he didn't tell us til after the fact that changes were made. One change I know that will hit some Canadians is the change to taking early CPP. Canadians have the choice of taking it at age 60 or wait until 65 , which you would get more. The problem comes in where some company pensions has a clause that reduces your company pension by the amount of CPP the workers gets per month. So the worker turns 60, the company now deducts the amount say $600.00 ie. even though you don't want to take your CPP at age 60. What was 31.2% loss by the worker at age 60, Harper now has raised that to 36% by 2016. So again business comes out on top! http://ca.news.yahoo.com/6-big-canada-pension-plan-changes-coming-2012-092928010.html

Topaz · January 31, 2012

A report asked BY Ottawa to do research on OAS found that the OAS is NOT in any danger and all this changes to OAS is ALL Harper's thinking. So now, we have some Canadains that may have to take their CPP early because of company pensions, or of no jobs or only finding part time jobs facing reduction to CPP and having to wait til they are 67 for OAS. This government has no heart or compassion for Canadians. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/research-belies-pms-warning-about-oas/article2320279/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Home&utm_content=2320279

capricorn · January 31, 2012

This government has no heart or compassion for Canadians.

Well then, he must have heart and compassion for future OAS recipients cause he wants to make it sustainable for the next generation of seniors.

Topaz · January 31, 2012

Well then, he must have heart and compassion for future OAS recipients cause he wants to make it sustainable for the next generation of seniors.

The report above said it was NOT in any danger, its more Harper ideas that government should not support their citzens like welfare, OAS, GIS etc. and if he does really think this then he should take or give a MP pension. The OAS should be by income and not age, the income is another matter, 50,000? Right now its 67,000.

punked · January 31, 2012

Well then, he must have heart and compassion for future OAS recipients cause he wants to make it sustainable for the next generation of seniors.

It is sustainable. I notice people keep talking about how it isn't sustainable with out using a single number.

waldo · January 31, 2012

Research belies PM’s warning about OAS

and a few highlighted statements for those who stepped up to parrot the Harper Conservative party line on OAS being unsustainable... stepped up, "hook, line and sinker"!

But research prepared at Ottawa’s request argues Canada’s pension system is in far better shape than the Europeans’, and there’s no need to raise the retirement age. Edward Whitehouse – who researches pension policy on behalf of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Bank – was asked by Ottawa to study and report on how Canada stacks up internationally when it comes to pensions.
His conclusion: “The analysis suggests that Canada does not face major challenges of financial sustainability with its public pension schemes,” and “there is no pressing financial or fiscal need to increase pension ages in the foreseeable future.”

While other OECD countries face big pension problems, the report predicts Canada will do just fine as the baby boomers retire. That’s because, as Canada heads into the boomer crunch, it spends far less than the OECD average on public pensions. Further, Canada’s relatively high levels of immigration will partially offset the distortions of an aging population, and Canadians tend to save more independently through RRSPs and workplace pensions than Europeans.

fellowtraveller · January 31, 2012

The OAS is sustainable but only if we close one out of three hospitals, and soon.

You get to pick which one in your town.

Or does the local clown posse think there is going to be plenty of money for everything we have now?

waldo · January 31, 2012

The OAS is sustainable but only if we close one out of three hospitals, and soon.

citation request

GostHacked · January 31, 2012

This is along the lines of austerity measures. I also think this is just the start of this trend.

punked · January 31, 2012

This is along the lines of austerity measures. I also think this is just the start of this trend.

"First one to the bottom wins!!!!"-Harper

fellowtraveller · January 31, 2012

citation request

some guy named waldo said this in #7:

- The number of Canadians over the age of 65 will increase from 4.7 million to 9.3 million over the next 20 years.
- The OAS program was built when Canadians were not living the longer, healthier lives they are today.

- Consequently, the cost of the OAS program will increase from $36B per year in 2010 to $108B per year in 2030.

- Meanwhile, by 2030, the number of taxpayers for every senior will be 2 - down from 4 in 2010.

The only options are to kill about 70% of the boomers, or address the tsunami of boomers about to retire, stop paying significant taxes and start hoovering up health care, OAS etc.

You pick 'em, because you are simply not going to get everything.

waldo · January 31, 2012

some guy named waldo said this in #7:

are you a simpleton? That was me quoting the PMO release... as if you didn't know. Provide a citation request to support your claim that, as you said, "The OAS is sustainable but only if we close one out of three hospitals, and soon. You know, something other than you parroting the unsubstantiated PMOspeak.

The only options are to kill about 70% of the boomers, or address the tsunami of boomers about to retire, stop paying significant taxes and start hoovering up health care, OAS etc.
You pick 'em, because you are simply not going to get everything.

says who? I just quoted you from the government's own requested research... quoted statements that challenge the Harper Conservative unsustainable claims. I earlier quoted a UBC economist who similarly challenges the claim the OAS is unsustainable.

capricorn · January 31, 2012

It is sustainable. I notice people keep talking about how it isn't sustainable with out using a single number.

So many numbers are being thrown around it's enough to make your head spin. What I'm very concerned about is that we will reach a point where there will only be 2 taxpayers for every retiree. The time to address this is now, not just through examining the OAS but all the pieces in the pensions bucket. We owe it to the coming generations of workers and retirees. As for OAS, before passing judgement I'll wait for the budget to see what the government intends in this regard.

capricorn · January 31, 2012

Oops. Second sentence should say "2 taxpayers for every 4 retirees".

scribblet · January 31, 2012

Agree, but the media et al are taking Harper derangement syndrome to the extreme, frothing at the mouth of what ifs and scary scarys, they are outdoing themselves in the frothing and spin dept. these days. :rolleyes:

This is an interesting take on the PM's proposed changes to the OAS. And of course Mr. Harper has now convened the required parliamentary panel to look into MPs pensions.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/well-keep-working-past-65-and-well-like-it/article2320096/print/

Brian Lee Crowley

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has renewed a perennial debate about when Canadians should expect to retire. Mr. Harper reportedly has in mind changes to the Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement that would raise eligibility for these benefits from 65 to 67.

Much of the reaction has focused on how such changes would affect public finances and the Canadian economy, essentially asking whether the benefits of reducing the cost of old-age income programs, plus the increased labour supply, justifies making older Canadians “worse off.”

But that approaches such changes exactly backward.

Such reforms, far from taking something away from seniors, are a tiny step in reversing decades of bad policy that has marginalized older Canadians, damaged their health and harmed their morale. Raising the age of eligibility is emphatically not a matter of imposing costs on seniors in order to benefit the rest of the population. It is an exceptionally pro-seniors policy to reduce the incentives to stop working at 65.

There was a time when 65 and retirement were closely linked for a compelling reason. A life of labour had left the average worker depleted. A few short years of decline was all they could expect before death. A Canadian male born in 1966, when the Canada Pension Plan was introduced, would only expect to live to age 68 or so. Today, it’s 79.

Age 65 and the moment when one can no longer reasonably be expected to work have long since parted company. We live longer and are in better health. Much of the work in our increasingly service-based economy is not physically taxing. Many conditions associated with aging can be controlled by medication or corrected by surgery, with new breakthroughs daily. It is only a modest exaggeration when some say that 60 is the new 40. cont...

waldo · January 31, 2012

Agree, but the media et al are taking Harper derangement syndrome to the extreme, frothing at the mouth of what ifs and scary scarys, they are outdoing themselves in the frothing and spin dept. these days.

while you're rolling your eyes, appreciate a significant portion of the response coming forward reflects upon many not trusting Harper... it also reflects upon the Harper Conservative idiot act followed in floating the 'concept' from a distance, where Canadians first hear/read anything about the proposal via second/third hand coverage/dispatch. It also reflects upon the follow-up clown show where the PMO and Cabinet ministers went into damage control. All in all, a bang-up job in presenting to Canadians an intent to change a most significant part of an established social contract. And you roll your eyes at the reaction forthcoming! :rolleyes:

fellowtraveller · February 1, 2012

are you a simpleton? That was me quoting the PMO release... as if you didn't know. Provide a citation request to support your claim that, as you said, "The OAS is sustainable but only if we close one out of three hospitals, and soon. You know, something other than you parroting the unsubstantiated PMOspeak.

says who? I just quoted you from the government's own requested research... quoted statements that challenge the Harper Conservative unsustainable claims. I earlier quoted a UBC economist who similarly challenges the claim the OAS is unsustainable.

I was hoping you were not one of those morons who think that you can double the number of recipients of huge gobs of end-of-life health care, and double the number of recipients of pensions, while simultaneously reducing the number of taxpayers. The numbers are real. My hopes for you have been dashed. I hope you do not have an aneurysm when the real talk begins on the 400 pound gorilla- health care.

Of course nearly anything is sustainable, but at what cost. If the money is spent on pensions, somehting else has to go. When the baby boomer wave hits, a lot of things have to go. Youy pick 'em- when you are the govt. Until then, enjoy the unbelievable spectacle of a PM actually acting on a problem before it is a crisis. He's no Jean Chretien.

punked · February 1, 2012

I was hoping you were not one of those morons who think that you can double the number of recipients of huge gobs of end-of-life health care, and double the number of recipients of pensions, while simultaneously reducing the number of taxpayers. The numbers are real. My hopes for you have been dashed. I hope you do not have an aneurysm when the real talk begins on the 400 pound gorilla- health care.

Of course nearly anything is sustainable, but at what cost. If the money is spent on pensions, somehting else has to go. When the baby boomer wave hits, a lot of things have to go. Youy pick 'em- when you are the govt. Until then, enjoy the unbelievable spectacle of a PM actually acting on a problem before it is a crisis. He's no Jean Chretien.

False dichotomy there is no choice between OAS and Healthcare, you just want that argument because that is one that strengthens your point. Right now it is a choice between many things.

fellowtraveller · February 1, 2012

while you're rolling your eyes, appreciate a significant portion of the response coming forward reflects upon many not trusting Harper... it also reflects upon the Harper Conservative idiot act followed in floating the 'concept' from a distance, where Canadians first hear/read anything about the proposal via second/third hand coverage/dispatch. It also reflects upon the follow-up clown show where the PMO and Cabinet ministers went into damage control. All in all, a bang-up job in presenting to Canadians an intent to change a most significant part of an established social contract. And you roll your eyes at the reaction forthcoming!

Not everybody voted NDP. You're talking out your ass again, the trust issue was thoroughly dismnissed when Harper won 165 seats. End, Of, Story. You'll just have to find a way to redirect your rage. In the meantime, here is Andrew Coyne, a gent who is more often scathingly critical of Harper:

At last, the hidden agenda, and not a moment too soon. Vague, indirect and overseas as it was, Stephen Harper’s Davos speech was perilously close to a vision statement, of a kind the prime minister has seldom made until now, and will henceforth have to make often.
It would be nice if he had shared with us his concerns about the ageing of the population, and the threat it poses to our long-run social and economic health, sometime before the last election, rather than joining in the all-party consensus that there was nothing wrong with Canada that could not be fixed with more and richer promises to the elderly.

Instead, we are now past the Tories’ sixth anniversary in power and the conversation, judging by the shocked reaction to the prime minister’s speech, has barely begun. Fine: let us at least hope it now continues. Because things are about to get real in a hurry, and it is long since time we did the same.

Related

John Ivison: Harper ’s pension-reform speech at Davos missing key details

Messing with public pensions could be minefield for Harper

‘Major transformations’ coming to Canada’s pension system, Harper tells Davos

First, a little demographic arithmetic. Over the next 20 years, as each year’s litter of baby boomers reaches the traditional retirement age of 65, the proportion of the population drawing a pension will double, from roughly 12% now to 25%. That not only entails a sharp rise in costs — both for pensions and, more seriously, for health care, of which the old consume vastly more, proportionately, than the young — but a concomitant decline in numbers among those who will have to pay for them all: the working age population.

Over the last 50 years, Canada’s labour force grew by roughly 200%, fastest in the developed world. Over the next 50 years, it is projected to grow by little more than 10%. Indeed, over the next decade, as more people leave the work force than enter it, we are in for an absolute decline in numbers. Add it up, and the ratio of available workers to retirees, near 5 to 1 not long ago, is headed toward 2 to 1. Where once we worried about finding jobs for unemployed workers, in future our concern will be finding enough workers to fill the jobs — and to support us in our dotage.

link to fascist puppet Andrew Coyne

waldo · February 1, 2012

The numbers are real.

what numbers? Unsustainable based on... what? How does a 2 year extension on benefit eligibility make it... sustainable? Why 2 years, why not 6 months... why not 5 years?

Of course nearly anything is sustainable, but at what cost. If the money is spent on pensions, somehting else has to go. When the baby boomer wave hits, a lot of things have to go.

notwithstanding your imaginary inflated gorilla, initial countering comment seems to imply managing increased eligibility via natural death occurrence/statistics.