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Good morning. I’m pleased to be here this morning with Brent Barr, our candidate here in Guelph, as well as Dean Allison, the MP for Niagara West-Glanbrook, and Michael Chong, MP for Wellington-Halton Hills.
Ladies and gentlemen, Canada needs a change to a new government that will bring accountability to Ottawa and get on with addressing the real priorities of ordinary working people and their families. Priorities like cleaning up government, cracking down on crime and cutting the GST. Priorities that will move Canada forward after 12 years of scandal and inaction.
Today, I want to talk about how a Conservative government will help our senior citizens. Today’s seniors have witnessed unprecedented changes in their lifetimes. Depression and war, good times and bad times, wave after wave of new technology. Through it all, you worked hard, raised your families, and built our communities. You saved for your future, you paid your taxes to support public pensions. And, like my own mom and dad, you relied on those pensions and those savings to be there for you.
Today’s seniors, like my mother, lead more vital and active lives than ever before. Canadian seniors are generally better off today than in past generations, and that is partly because parties of all stripes have been committed to securing retirement income in Canada. But today we must fight to preserve seniors’ hard won gains. And don’t let anybody mislead you – a new Conservative government will protect those gains for all our seniors by securing and building on our pension system. Conservative governments have done their part over the past 70 years to build our public pension system, and I will honour those commitments. My government will fully preserve the Old Age Security, the Guaranteed Income Supplement, and the Canada Pension Plan and all projected future increases to these programs. And I will build on those commitments.
Today, beyond committing to fully preserving our existing public pension system, I am making two additional commitments. Our first commitment is to increase the amount of pension income that can be sheltered from income tax. Presently that amount is $1,000. A Conservative government will immediately double that amount to $2,000 and increase it to $2,500 over time. Seniors who sacrificed to save for their retirement and paid into pension plans should get a tax break. The pension deduction increase, in addition to other measures we have announced, like the GST tax cut, will save most seniors hundreds of dollars per year. The increased seniors’ pension deduction is substantial. It will leave more than $2.2 billion dollars in the hands of seniors over the next five years.
My second commitment is to ensure improved services to seniors. Seniors who are trying to get information about pensions or other government programs must be treated with the respect and courtesy they deserve. It is not acceptable for seniors, who are counting every dollar, to be ignored, treated rudely, or stuck in voice mail when they are trying to get answers to their questions. There are far too many reports of these experiences from seniors who deal with government offices. To ensure that there is accountability for how seniors are treated, and to ensure that seniors have a voice in government policy decisions, we will appoint a National Senior’s Council. The Council will be made up of seniors and representatives of seniors’ organizations to advise the Minister responsible for Seniors on issues of national importance.
In this election, seniors have to ask themselves which party they can trust to take care of their needs in their retirement years. The Liberals will try their usual scare tactics in this campaign. I find it reprehensible to scare seniors for political purposes, but the Liberals resort to this tactic in almost every election. When the Liberal attacks begin, when they begin lying about our commitment to pensions, remember it was the Liberals who threatened to tax income trusts. This was a direct attack on the retirement income of millions of Canadians. And when the government changed its mind, it appears that it was again privileged insiders, not ordinary seniors, who benefited. You know where the Liberals stand on raiding seniors nest eggs. Whether it is death taxes, or taxing income trusts, a new Conservative government will never let this happen. A Conservative government will protect our public pension programs. We will build on them by allowing seniors to keep more of their pension tax free, and we will ensure better services for our seniors.
On January 23rd, let’s stand up for change, stand up for our seniors, and stand up for Canada.
