This election, all parties should commit to delivering an additional $5,000 to each of the half-million retirees who fall below Canada’s official poverty line. The $2.5 billion annual cost could be covered by scaling back slightly the cash benefits that retirees with household incomes above $100,000 receive from Old Age Security (OAS). This change would affect just 1 in 5 retirees.

Some will bristle at the idea of any reduction to OAS, believing they deserve this support because they paid taxes throughout their working years. But OAS is not the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). Today’s retirees have not paid into the program in proportion to the benefits they now receive – even if they worked hard and paid taxes according to the rules of the day.

In anticipation of the baby boom cohort aging, the government changed CPP so Canadians could collect a benefit relatively proportionate to what they contributed. Sadly, Ottawa didn’t do the same for OAS. It remains a government subsidy paid to whomever is eligible – and eligibility rules are far more generous than for most other cash benefits.

Ottawa claws back the Canada Child Benefit from families with kids when their household income surpasses $79,000. By contrast, retired couples can have $180,000 in combined income before OAS payments are reduced. This disparity persists even though compared to young families, retirees have the lowest rates of poverty, the highest levels of wealth, and a great deal of housing security (since 70% are home owners).

It’s reasonable to ask retirees with incomes over $100,000 to take less from OAS so that we can deliver more support to their economically vulnerable peers. OAS was designed at a time when other retirement supports – like CPP and pension income splitting – weren’t in place. Now, the generosity of OAS for affluent retirees is a primary reason we leave a half million seniors in poverty, and rack up large deficits that our kids and future generations will inherit.

Happily, others agree that the time has come to rethink Canada's retirement policies.

The C.D. Howe Institute recently concluded that, since seniors "are now the age group in Canada least likely to live in poverty... the historical emphasis on preferential taxation of the elderly [is] inappropriate"... "Scarce tax dollars should not be allocated to a cohort with a lower incidence of low-income than many others."

Three-quarters of Canadians also stand behind the need for changes to OAS - including three-quarters of retirees, some of whom would be directly affected by the changes we propose. Are you one of them? They're raising their voices to urge all parties to act. If you want to join them, let us know!