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Statements & Hansard  

Statement made on 26 June 2013 by Liberal Senator Catherine Callbeck  of Prince Edward Island.

Hon. Catherine S. Callbeck:

Honourable senators, I would like to take a few minutes to close out this inquiry that I have had on the Order Paper for some time. It deals with the eligibility criteria of the Old Age Security Allowance. It is a very simple issue, but it is an important one.

As it stands now, certain low-income seniors are being denied the OAS Allowance under the Old Age Security Program, simply due to marital status.

Under the Old Age Security Program, as it is right now, there are two benefits called “Allowances” available to low-income seniors aged 60 to 64.

For the OAS Allowance, in order to be eligible, a senior must be aged 60 to 64 and his or her spouse must receive the basic OAS pension and the Guaranteed Income Supplement. Together they are considered low-income.

The second one is the Allowance for the Survivor. It is designed for widows and widowers aged 60 to 64 who have a low income.

I am happy that we have these two benefits because they have helped many seniors. In total, almost 88,000 seniors benefit from these allowances right now.

However, we have some low-income seniors aged 60 to 64 who cannot even apply for this allowance. If that person has never married or is divorced, he or she is not eligible to apply for the allowance. It creates a very unfair situation. It means that we are treating some seniors differently from others.

We could easily fix this problem by expanding the OAS Allowance for all low-income unattached seniors between the ages of 60 to 64.

CARP, which is a national advocacy group for seniors, once again called for the expansion of this program in its pre-budget submission in 2013. The submission notes that almost 20 per cent of single older women live in poverty, and that unattached older women as a group have one of the highest rates of poverty in Canada.

It is unacceptable that the federal government is excluding one group of low-income people who really need assistance. They are excluded just because they have never been married or they are divorced.

I would urge the federal government to fix the criteria so that everyone in that age group will be treated fairly.