The Minister of Seniors for the federal government, Filomena Tassi, showed up at an intimate meeting in Richmond Thursday afternoon, to discuss seniors’ situation with representatives of Richmond Cares, Richmond Gives and Vancouver Coastal Health, and volunteer caregivers.
Tassi has visited more than 100 communities since she was appointed last August and she said the two biggest challenges seniors faced are income security and affordable housing.
“It’s important for me to reach out to seniors in the community to determine what their needs are,” said Tassi, adding that seniors will take up a quarter of the entire population in Canada by 2030.
“It’s also important that we demonstrate we are working hard for seniors, to talk about the budget and what our government has done for the senior population.”
Tassi highlighted some of the 2019 budget that was aimed at “keeping more money in the pockets of seniors.”
“We were able to negotiate and increase the Canadian Pension Plan(CPP), so for retirees in the future, this is an increase of up to 50 per cent CPP benefit,” she said.
“And in the budget, we have automatic enrollment for CPP once you hit the age of 70. There are Canadians who have worked but not realized they are entitled to those benefits, and most of those are women that are not aware of it.”
She said that the new budget has also expanded monthly non-taxable benefits for seniors who choose to work and for the first time, included self-employed seniors.
“It’s an initiative we have to help combat agism, by encouraging seniors if they want to stay in the workplace to stay in the workplace,” she said.
Tassi also emphasized the government’s intention to move forward on three elements of national pharmacare that was introduced in Budget 2019.
This includes creating the Canadian Drug Agency that would negotiate drug prices on behalf of Canada’s drug plans, develop a national formulary – a “comprehensive, evidence-based list of prescribed drugs” and a national strategy for high-cost drugs for rare diseases, according to Tassi.
"These measures are an important first step in expanding drug coverage and moving forward on implementing national pharmacare," she said.
As for housing, Tassi mentioned the government's $40 billion 10-year National Housing Strategy, in which $13 billion will be available to those that want to create secure housing for seniors.
