Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-François Blanchet speaks at TVA studios in Montreal, on Sept. 2, 2021.MARTIN CHEVALIER/AFP/Getty Images
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet has named his price for not moving against the minority Liberal government this year – ensuring that wealthy seniors continue to pluck money from the pockets of young families.
Of course, that’s not Mr. Blanchet’s preferred framing for his two demands of boosting benefits for seniors by an estimated $16-billion over five years and keeping agricultural supply management off the table in trade talks.
The second idea would cement in place the unfortunate status quo of continuing to coddle the wealthy farmers and large corporations that benefit from the protectionist security blanket of supply management, to the detriment of consumers – particularly families with young children. (The Trudeau government already made a point of excluding supply management in trade talks with Britain.)
Bad as that idea is, the Bloc’s proposal to boost Old Age Security payments for younger seniors is much worse, deepening the generational inequities already created by the Liberals adding billions of dollars in permanent program spending.
First, some history. Three years ago, in advance of the 2021 election campaign, the Trudeau government announced a 10-per-cent boost in OAS payments for seniors 75 years and older, supposedly because of the increased costs that they faced.
That rationale was always patently ridiculous. The OAS (a social program, not a pension) is paid to all seniors, not just those struggling to make ends meet. A senior couple who are both at least 75 and have a household income of $173,000 can receive close to $19,000 in annual benefits.
If the Liberals were simply aiming to help poor seniors, there is already a program tailor-made for that purpose: the Guaranteed Income Supplement. But the Liberals chose electoral bribes over sound policy, opting to shovel billions of dollars to well-off seniors rather than to focus resources where they were most needed. (Or to simply not to add to the deficit.)
Now, the Bloc Québécois is pushing the Liberals to double down on that mistake by extending the 10-per-cent increase to all seniors. That increase, along with related measures, would add $16-billion in net costs over five years, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
That’s another $16-billion in deficit spending, piled on to the mountain of debt that the Trudeau government will already bequeath to generations of taxpayers to come.
The chances of the Liberals rejecting the Bloc’s demands don’t seem all that good. The private member’s bill codifying the OAS increase won unanimous support at committee, including from Liberal MPs. A spending bill needs the acquiescence of the government, of course, but the Liberal support to date underscores the politics at work. Who wants to vote against seniors’ benefits months (or perhaps hours) before an election campaign begins?
And it’s hard to fathom what principled objection the Trudeau government might make, given its own previous contortions of logic to justify the 2022 increase for older seniors. If the Liberals were to point out the obvious – the inanity of sending bigger cheques to high-income Canadians just because they are 65 years old – they would, of course, concede the inanity of sending bigger cheques to high-income Canadians simply because they are 75 years old.
There is, however, a worthwhile (if modest) measure in the private member’s bill that would provide targeted assistance to low-income seniors, namely an increase to the ludicrously small amount that Canadians can earn before their GIS payments are reduced. The Bloc-sponsored bill would increase that annual threshold to $6,500 from the current $5,000. That measure would help the poorest of seniors, and at the relatively modest cost of $768-million over five years, according to the PBO.
That part of the bill is worth considering. Not only would it assist those seniors most in need, it would give an added incentive for younger retirees to work part-time. And it needn’t increase the deficit by a dime. To pay for it, the government could adjust the clawback rates for OAS, as this space has previously urged, so that payments to well-off retirees decrease.
Asking the rich to give up a little to help out poorer Canadians? That’s on brand for the Liberals’ political messaging, if not their actual policy for seniors’ benefits.