OTTAWA- August 2009 – Member of Parliament Ed Holder is pleased to provide the following article for use in your publication without charge.  

Changes for Seniors

London’s Seniors comprise an important part of my constituency in London West and often contact me to ask what changes our government has made that affects them directly.  If you need assistance with any of these issues, please contact my office or visit www.seniors.gc.ca.

To help Seniors who choose to remain in the workforce we introduced the $60 million Targeted Initiative for Older Workers and increased the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) exemption 7-fold, from $500 to $3500. This allows Seniors to earn more before seeing their benefits reduced. 

The GIS has been increased twice by hundreds of dollars the process of applying for this benefit has been improved; now Seniors need only apply once for the GIS – not year after year.  This is part of a new outreach campaign to make Seniors aware of their retirement benefits.  This will be made easier because Service Canada points of service are being increased and will include outreach and mobile services to visit Seniors at home, including nursing homes. 

The new Tax Free Savings Account protects Seniors retirement savings, the most important savings vehicle since the RRSP.  We introduced pension income splitting and doubled the pension income credit from $1,000 to $2,000.  This helped 2.7 million Seniors and took 85,000 pensioners off the tax rolls.  The age credit has increased by $1,000, to $5,066, saving Seniors hundreds of dollars in taxes.

Our Government created a Minister responsible for Seniors to represent them at the Cabinet table and created a National Seniors Council to give Seniors a say in the issues that matter to them (learn more at www.seniorscouncil.gc.ca).

We support over 1,700 community projects across Canada that help Seniors remain active through the New Horizons Program increased the budget by almost 50%.  We also invested $13 million to fight elder abuse.

The Refundable Medical Expense Supplement tax credit has been increased  by more than 30% (learn more at www.cra.gc.ca)and the age for converting RRSPs to RIFs is up from 69 to 71.  Seniors will receive $200 million in tax relief with the reduction in the required minimum withdrawal amount for 2008 from Registered Retirement Income Funds by 25 percent, recognizing the impact of weak market conditions on retirement savings.

The Government has allocating $400 million over two years for the construction of housing units for low-income Seniors and expanded the Employment Insurance Compassionate Caregivers Benefit.   (learn more at www.servicecanada.gc.ca)

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