44th Parl. 1st Sess.

June 10, 2022 10:00AM

Jun/10/22 1:59:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to start off by saying that I am pleased and honoured to speak in the House to Motion No. 45, brought forward by the member for Etobicoke North. I will say right from the start that I am not opposed to the motion. I am fine with doing the study and everything, but I am concerned about whether we need to do another study. I mean, there has been enough information and there have been enough studies brought forward in the past. One of the concerns I have is that everyone talks about, “Well, maybe this study needs to be updated,” or, “Maybe this one is a little too far out of date,” but I still think there is enough information. I will begin with some background and history as to my past. Before I was an MP, I was mayor of Yellowhead County. At that time, I was also part of an organization called the Evergreens Foundation, which was the seniors housing situation in our riding. Not only was I on the board, but I was also the chair of the board, which gave me the opportunity to understand a lot more about seniors' issues. As I am also getting older, it is great to be aware of what is potentially going to happen to me in the future. At the Evergreens Foundation we were in charge of housing, and that ranged from homes to apartments and right to seniors lodges. There was a lot of information that we had to take in, and a lot of issues in trying to get seniors into our housing areas. There was never this “based on income” requirement in order to be allowed in the housing market, but definitely 30 points were given based on one's income score. If one had too high a level of income, then one was less eligible to get in. Unfortunately, that was not the case for most people. Most had no problem accessing the subsidized part of our housing operation. However, when I went to conferences, I was quite astounded to learn from one of the speakers about the future plans, or lack thereof, that Canadians had for retirement. The speaker talked about how probably about 25% of Canadians really planned for their future. They knew that the Canada pension was not going to be enough and that they had to supplement it, and they were very secure in making sure that they had no problems financially. Unfortunately, the next 25% of people knew that they probably would not get enough money from the Canada pension and so they really should start saving, but they also did not put enough money aside. It gets scarier as we keep going through the numbers. The next 25% believed that they probably should put money aside, but maybe the Canada pension would be enough to take care of them and so they really just sort of thought, “We'll just deal with it.” Unfortunately, the last 25% of Canadians did not even have a clue that they needed to save for their retirement. They just assumed that the Canada pension was going to be enough and that the government was there to take care of all their concerns. When we look at these numbers, 75% of Canadians are not able to secure their future and have not put enough money aside or did not even know they had to put enough money aside for retirement, so this is where I kind of question a study. The speaker I am talking about spoke at this conference over five years ago, so it has been an issue for many years already that Canadians do not think they need to have a retirement plan. They figure that the government is more than willing to take care of them. One of my concerns with the motion is this: After all these years we have known that Canadians have not saved enough money, I question why we need another study when there is more than enough information out there. Now, not only is that a problem I had with that committee, but I started to understand a lot more about how Canadians lived their lives, because of some of those statistics as well as being on the board of Evergreens. I will change the names and areas so that I do not identify anybody in my riding, but I have dealt with Mary from Thorsby many times in the past. Finances have been a big issue for most of her life, so putting money aside was never an issue for her, because she just never had excess money to put aside. However, every time something came up, she would ask, “Gerald, is there more availability for programs or some other grant or something for housing? Are there things I can access?” Unfortunately, I was never able to give her any real help. However, when COVID hit, Mary was still working part-time, and she was in her eighties at the time. The organization she was with applied for COVID funding for her, and she was able to get that COVID funding. The problem was that she did not put any money aside for the taxes, so she ended up paying, and I am well aware we have kind of changed direction on that, so that is not too bad for her. However, her problem still was that she did not get the guaranteed income supplement. She was losing over $600 a month. When she talked about her Canada pension and all of the bills that she had, and she is about $450 in the hole every month. She is not able to make ends meet. I talked to Mary and told her that I did not want to bring it up, but I was thinking her only option would maybe be a reverse guaranteed mortgage. That is where the government or an agency assumes the mortgage on her farm and give her the money she needs. It basically takes the inheritance away from the family members. She told me that she just could not do that. I thought that it was more about the personal strength of her own farm and knowing that she would have to, in a way, sell the farm back, but that is not what the issue was. The issue was that her son had gotten into some financial trouble a couple years ago and she ended up mortgaging her farm to help her son out. There was no way she could even get this guaranteed basic income from her home with a reverse mortgage situation. This lady is in a terrible situation because no matter where one thought there could be money coming from, she was not able to access it. That was the devastating part. Through no fault of her own, but for the love of her son, she actually tried to make it better for her family, which ended up hurting her. Now we have this woman who is in her 80s, with no real financial opportunities, who did not plan properly in her life, and I feel for her, but at the same time, there are not any government programs in there. My concern with this program and doing this study is the fact that it is going to take another year. That is fine, but it will then also take how many more months or another year to implement any of the recommendations put forward. We are probably looking at, at least, a minimum of two years. What do we tell Mary for the next two years, who does not have the money to help her get through and cope with everything she has been dealing with? It is very devastating for me to have say, “Jeez, Mary, I am sorry. I am not able to help.” Unfortunately, Mary's is just one of the many stories I have heard from seniors living across my riding. I think some of them have thought just like I said. The last 25% believe that the Canada pension was going to be enough, and it never was enough. It was always supposed to be supplemented by some personal savings account. What a lot of farmers have done is to sell their farms as part of their retirement package and then live off the interest, for whatever time that amounted to. That is great for some people, but not everybody is in that situation. There are many seniors who have rented their whole life, rented right in towns and cities, wherever they may be, and they just never had that asset to sell. Therefore, that becomes a problem when the future comes and they do not have that financial security. My concern with this motion is the fact that we are well aware of the pitfalls that Canadians have put themselves in. We are well aware of all of the studies that have been done in the past, yet this is not addressing the current needs today. Unfortunately, it is going to take two more years, probably, before this goes through, so I am really hoping that everyone does support this. I am really hoping that we are able to get Canadians back to the financial security and quality of life seniors deserve in their final days, because it is never good that anyone who has given all their time to Canada, to the community, is having that taken away from them.

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