HUMA Committee Report

Advancing Inclusion and Quality of Life for Canadian Seniors

Supplementary Report of the New Democratic Party (NDP)

Recommendations

1. To help those vulnerable seniors, the New Democratic Party of Canada calls for a Minister for Seniors who will be responsible to:
   • Implement the National Seniors Strategy.
   • Address immediately the unacceptable levels of poverty among seniors.
   • Ensure any new National Seniors Strategy must have stringent monitoring, reporting and accountability measures.
   • Ensure that any National Seniors Strategy and the government give high priority to help those at-risk groups identified by testimony, i.e. Indigenous, women living alone, LGBQT2, racialized minorities, and recent immigrants.
   • Review, revise and improve seniors’ benefits for the vulnerable, and ensure that all services, communications and education be done in a manner sensitive and suitable for the variety of seniors who find themselves in many different places and situations.
   • Pay special attention to seniors living in rural and remote areas.
2. We call on the government to:
   • Support a National Pharmacare Program.
   • Work Nation to Nation with Indigenous communities.
   • Establish and support a multi-department Seniors Secretariat.

 “We see that seniors are not keeping up with the working-age population's living standards...if seniors are saving to maintain their own standard of living from when they were working and to be included with their peers, they're always going to lag behind the next generation. That's a conversation to have in and of itself.” Dr. Tammy Schirle, Professor, Department of Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, as an individual

“The face of senior poverty is overwhelmingly female. The median income in 2013 for a senior woman was $21,900, compared with $32,300 for a man. We need to take steps to fix this” Wanda Morris, Vice-President, Advocacy, Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP)

“Step one is to establish (home care) national standards, national entitlements, or national expectations to deal with this variation among provinces. That will lead to an ability to attract to the labour force the kinds of people we need.” Isobel Mackenzie, Seniors Advocate, Office of the Seniors Advocate of British Columbia

“What is missing? We need a vision for seniors care in Canada. We need to be planning for 2025 and beyond, when 25% of the population will be over 65 years of age. A national seniors strategy could lead the way by establishing a vision for seniors' quality of life, health care inclusion, and income security. The national strategy could assist small organizations and communities like ours in Langley to adopt a planning strategy with a clear vision, access to information, and resources about types of programs and services that communities can set up with their existing service providers” Debra Hauptman, Chief Executive Officer, Langley Lodge, Langley Care Society

“When I wrote the report on financial literacy…, my take was that we should make the system simple enough that an average person can make reasonable decisions and be treated fairly” Richard Shillington, Adviser Council on Aging of Ottawa

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Seniors and children should be the most valued members of our families, our communities and our country. At the outset of this Supplementary Report, the New Democratic Party of Canada want to pay tribute to seniors, as well as to those on the front lines of delivering health care, home care, and all the other services and benefits for our seniors. We especially pay tribute to community volunteers and to the legion of overwhelmed, informal caregivers, often members of the seniors’ own family. There are seniors too who may be at a stage of being very vulnerable economically and at the same time are having to care for a loved one. We remember them.

This study, “Advancing Inclusion and Quality of Life for Canadian Seniors”, presumes that place of respect and honour for our seniors. The New Democratic Party knows that words alone are not enough. Seniors and their loved ones need action and concrete plans, to do justice for our seniors, especially those many vulnerable seniors in our midst. We need leadership immediately from the federal government in collaboration with the other levels of government to deliver a concrete and long-term plan of action for the many vulnerable seniors who are not finding the golden years so golden. StatsCan recently published new numbers concerning the reality in which many seniors live. The percentage of seniors living in low income increased since 2005, from 12.0% to 14.5% in 2015[1]. This increase is only one of the reasons why we should look more after seniors.

Worse, there are particular at-risk groups among seniors – women living alone, members of the LBGQT2 communities, Indigenous people, recent immigrants, those in racialized minorities – who are already far behind other Canadians and will only face worse hardships in their senior years as they age.

“I would add that the consequences of our current system are profoundly gendered. Women live longer than men, use the health system more, and have fewer economic resources, so the failure to provide care has a gendered impact. The impact is unequal among women as well. Women also provide the overwhelming majority of paid and unpaid care work, so poor conditions of work have the greatest impact on them. In home and residential care, a significant number of those women are from immigrant and racialized communities. We need a federal initiative to ensure universal access to the full range of health services delivered by non-profit organizations based on the same principles as the Canada Health Act. This also means a human resource strategy that ensures appropriate conditions of work. We need to do it now, before it's too late.” Pat Armstrong, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

1.      We can do better. We must do better.To help those vulnerable seniors, the New Democratic Party of Canada calls for a Minister for Seniors who will be responsible to:

• Implement the National Seniors Strategy recommended in this report[2]. We believe that any National Seniors Strategy must be twofold: deliver immediate help to our vulnerable seniors; launch the long overdue vision and strategy plan for 2036 and beyond, when one of every four Canadians will be 65 years or older[3]. Both the immediate and long-term plans in a national strategy must address all issues in a meaningful way across all levels of government.
  • “It should have happened a long time ago. We should have done some demographic planning. We should have had a look and had a long-term strategy in place. There is one thing I was going to mention when the previous question was being answered. What we need is a long-term strategy to turn the ship around. It can't be reliant on election cycles. We need a long-term strategy that all political parties agree with. It should say what we need to do over the next 20 years in order to sort this out. We need principles that will be adhered to.” Leighton McDonald, President, Closing the Gap Healthcare, Canadian Home Care
• Address immediately the unacceptable levels of poverty among seniors. It is time to expand the CPP and other elements of the public pension system, including OAS and GIS, so all Canadians have access to decent retirement security.
  • “There is a whole lot of room in the CPP where we still could go. The replacement rate of CPP was set at 25% income replacement back in 1967, which was 50 years ago, when the program started, and it's still at 25% today. We were calling for that to be moved up to 50%. It is moving up to 33%. There's a whole lot of room there where we could still go. We polled on this issue, and Canadians are actually quite willing to put more money into the CPP. We gave them dollar figures and per cent figures, and they were supportive of doing that. This is a trade-off they are willing to make.” Mark Janson, Senior Pensions Officer, National Officer Canadian Union of Public Employees
• Ensure any new National Seniors Strategy must have stringent monitoring, reporting and accountability measures.. Predictably, with the government majority, this report does not go far enough in its recommendations nor puts in place in regards to a National Seniors Strategy the precise measures for monitoring, reporting and accountability. Whether it is a new Ministry as we prefer or the National Seniors Council sharing increased responsibility for the delivery of services for seniors, this vagueness on monitoring, reporting and accountability measures will undermine the effectiveness of any National Seniors Strategy.
• Ensure that any National Seniors Strategy and the government give high priority to help those at-risk groups identified by testimony, i.e. Indigenous, women living alone, LGBQT2, racialized minorities, and recent immigrants. There are vulnerable seniors too who identify at the same time with several of these groups, what the literature refers to as concurrent inter-sectionality, e.g. an Indigenous woman living alone, a recent immigrant with a disability, a black or Asian senior who identifies as LGBQT2. They require government’s urgent attention.
  • “I work in the Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division. We have produced a report that looks at the situation of seniors in population centres. Among other things, the study looks at seniors who are in a low-income situation. It demonstrates that in 2011, 23% of aboriginal seniors who were living in population centres were in a low-income situation, and this compared with 13% of the non-aboriginal senior population. We also see differences between men and women in the aboriginal population and the non-aboriginal population. A higher percentage of senior aboriginal women were part of a low-income population compared to senior men: 26% compared with 18%. In looking at the non-aboriginal population, again women are more likely to be in a low-income situation than men: 16% of women compared with 9% of men.” Pamela Best, Assistant Director, Social and Aboriginal Statistics Division, Statistics Canada
• Review, revise and improve seniors’ benefits for the vulnerable, and ensure that all services, communications and education be done in a manner sensitive and suitable for the variety of seniors who find themselves in many different places and situations. Government services must be far more senior-friendly, flexible, transparent and coherent. The report refers to the uniqueness of each senior, much like a sunset, no two exactly alike ---”…diversity in physical ability, income, education, and living circumstances among these individuals.`” The Government of Canada must remember this uniqueness and diversity among seniors in its delivery of all benefits and services, paying particular attention to differences that may exist within the same province and 127 even within the same region or riding. There are seniors who thrive on the Internet while others avoid it and still others who would like to access the Internet for government services and forms but have either no rural nor remote broadband or intermittent signals. Some seniors use 1-800 government telephone numbers. Other seniors want to deal in person with government staff. Seniors too may be challenged by enormous healthcare crisis while others are thirsting for further education, language, cultural and employment opportunities. Government of Canada services must be friendly and accessible for all seniors.
• Pay special attention to seniors living in rural and remote areas who face unique challenges in housing, healthcare, home care, transportation, accessibility, technology and other issues. Despite the testimony, the all-party committee report does not make this the priority that is needed and that the New Democratic Party supports. There was testimony in the hearings on seniors in rural, smaller, and otherwise hard-to-service remote communities facing unique challenges on: social isolation; quality of life; shelter costs; increased access to appropriate care; eviction and homelessness, utilities shut off, roofs leaking and in dire need of repair.
  • “I think one of the things that we are starting to do actually here in Canada is to combine hospitals and long-term care and assisted living, creating a community of those facilities. Rather than closing all our tiny hospitals and closing all of those things in small communities, we can combine all of the services to make them one real service.” Pat Armstrong, Research Associate, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

2.      As well, we call on the government to:

• Support a National Pharmacare Program.This will save money for Canadians and the government[4]. It is unacceptable to learn about seniors cutting expensive medications or not filling prescriptions at all.
  • “To reiterate CMA's (Canadian Medical Association) presentation on October 26, we are also long-time supporters of a national pharmacare program. A national pharmacare program would allow for improving, monitoring, and evaluating prescribing practice. It would do so much to eliminate inappropriate prescribing to seniors. It would also help ensure that seniors would have equal access to the necessary and safe prescription.” Linda Silas, President, Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions
• Work Nation to Nation with Indigenous communities on all the significant challenges facing their seniors. We know the well-documented injustices here in housing, health, infrastructure, food security, cultural and social isolation and more.
  • “We talk about needing housing, needing housing that is appropriate to seniors. We need to have programs, whether it`s the home care, the transportation that brings them to the service or to the dentist to have their health care needs met” Vera Pawis-Tabobodung, Senator, National Association of Friendship Centres
• Establish and support a multi-department Seniors Secretariat to ensure that the recommendations from this report are implemented and that all benefits and services for our seniors are delivered in a timely, fair and full fashion
  • “First, the Réseau FADOQ recommends the creation of a seniors’ secretariat under the Federal Executive Council. We also suggest that all current and future public policies be looked at through a “seniors’ lens.” And we would welcome an upgrade of the National Seniors Council, so that it might become a locus of collaboration for organizations such as ours.” Danis Prud’homme, Chief Executive Officer, Réseau FADOQ

Let us be clear on the need for a full, independent and dedicated Minister and Ministry that actually does make a difference in the lives of our seniors. We must learn from the mistakes of the current and previous governments. Despite the evidence of how fast and how large our population of seniors is growing[5], the current government wants to continue to locate services in its one, super-sized Ministry of Employment and Social Development. Seniors have suffered because of their services lost in this large Ministry. Having a Ministry for Seniors will not in or of itself solve anything. The previous government had a Minister for Seniors but since it was a Minister of State for Seniors, which is not the same thing as a Minister for Seniors, no department for seniors was ever created. A Minister for Seniors is a major step forward only if the government gives it prominence and sufficient resources.

There are other concerns we have with this report that, predictably, with the government majority, does not go far enough in its recommendations nor puts in place in regards to a National Seniors Strategy the precise measures for monitoring, reporting and accountability. Whether it is a new Ministry as we prefer or the National Seniors Council sharing increased responsibility for the delivery of services for seniors, this vagueness on monitoring, reporting and accountability measures will undermine the effectiveness of any National Seniors Strategy.

Testimony highlighted too the acute crisis in care-giving, both formal and informal. While the report’s call for pan-Canadian guidelines for home care services is a good start, it is not enough.

This especially is an issue that requires co-ordinated action from all levels of government. People across this country know how desperate the situation is, as we heard in this testimony:

“One thing we can do is look at how we can support caregivers better. These caregivers are providing $26 billion annually of unpaid and informal care. We have a provision in the CPP to give child rearers, primarily women, a time out when they are raising children. We would love to see that extended to caregivers, but also, being aware that having other CPP contributors subsidize it would be a regressive tax, we look for something more innovative, such as government funding for those CPP premiums.” Wanda Morris, Vice-President, Advocacy, Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP)

“People are not attracted to it (caregivers). It's not a glamourous role, and it doesn't pay well. It's a matter of making sure that people can sustain themselves. That's the first side of it. Then it's making sure that we have the curricula at the colleges in order to do this and that quality standards are in place. It's a matter of putting that structure in place. The overarching one is making sure that people want to do it. We are continually battling with people. We work, for example, in some rural areas. During the summer, our personal support workers become servers at restaurants because it pays better. We battle getting capacity in summer because people go work in restaurants. I think the way in which we recognize and remunerate these very important parts of the health care system needs to be looked at.” Leighton McDonald, President, Closing the Gap Healthcare, Canadian Home Care

Finally, one of the report’s recommendations calls for reviewing and updating the Guaranteed Income Supplement benefit to ensure that vulnerable seniors receive adequate income and “to assess the impact that marital status can have on recipients.” There was testimony on divorced or single women having unique challenges or penalties in terms of accessing benefits or receive the same benefits as others. We must close these gaps in benefits. Eligibility and payments should be based on age and income rather than prior marital status.

Conclusion

This report’s recommendations, including our Supplementary Report recommendations, will make a huge difference in the lives of our seniors, no matter where they live in Canada. As people age, as they face the normal health and life challenges that come with aging, we can act to make their lives better. We can fix the injustices and unfairness that this and other studies have identified. We do it for our honoured seniors and elders. We do it for the good of our country and ourselves.

“We need to reconsider Canadians’ priorities for supporting vulnerable populations as opposed to entire demographic groups.” Dr. Tammy Schirle, Professor, Department of Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University, as an Individual