BC Southern Interior MP Alex Atamanenko recently wrote the Honourable Diane Finley, M.P. and Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development to provide the minister with feedback from local constituents regarding Prime Minister Harper’s recent announcement of plans to raise the Old Age Security to 67 years.
He also passed on the following comments to the minister:
• The OAS-GIS is easily sustainable and is actually projected to decrease in cost, relative to the size of the economy, in the long-run.
• We should be taking practical, affordable measures to lift every senior out of poverty, by expanding the GIS – not make it worse by slashing Old Age Security.
• A better option for Canadians is to expand the CPP, as the NDP has long argued. A modest increase in premiums can finance a doubling of CPP benefits for all Canadian workers. This would provide real, sustainable, retirement security for Canadians.
I strongly urge you to take into consideration the hardships an increase in OAS eligibility would bring to many Canadians approaching retirement age.
- Alex Atamanenko