Photo: Carol Allegri/Reuters
Canada’s retired public servants will be one voice among thousands vying for attention in the new Parliament. But the decentralized power and necessary collaboration that typically mark minority governments offer a chance for the National Association of Federal Retirees to advance its priorities, says director of advocacy Sayward Montague. “It seems to be a government that shares some of our priorities and that we can continue to work with,” Montague said in the days after the Oct. 21 vote.
Before and during the campaign, the 176,000-member organization pushed the five largest political parties to establish greater retirement security, adopt a national seniors strategy, relieve veterans and their families of their unique burdens when leaving service, and create a national pharmacare program. Among those goals, pharmacare — or some form of it — has a clear shot of soon becoming policy, says Montague.
The 157 MPs from the Liberal minority government will have to work with other parties to pass bills. The New Democratic Party and the Green Party, also support an expansion of medicare to cover drugs. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, whose party won 24 seats, and former Green leader Elizabeth May, who brought in three seats, both mentioned pharmacare as potential areas of co-operation after election night.
The Conservatives said the Liberal pharmacare promise could lead to $15 billion in new taxes, though leader Andrew Scheer did say prior to the campaign that he’d work to close gaps in coverage. The party would also seek to have more medicines for rare diseases developed in Canada, Scheer said.
A groundswell of public support for pharmacare makes it impossible to ignore or delay, according to Montague. Canada’s high drug prices and coverage gaps are well-known. Among highly developed economies, Canada is the only country that has a public healthcare program that doesn’t cover medications prescribed outside of hospitals.
Drug spending has grown rapidly since the advent of medicare, rising to $33.7 billion in 2018 from $2.6 billion in 1985. Today, Canada has the third-highest drug prices among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development nations, 25 per cent above the organization’s median.
Around 20 per cent of Canadians have inadequate or no coverage at all and pay for medication out of pocket, a federal advisory council reported earlier this year. Seniors can especially feel the pinch, since people are prescribed more medications as they age, according to the Canadian Institute of Health Information.
Federal Retirees will be watching for how Parliamentarians decide to pay for a pharmacare program and what it will mean for seniors, says Montague. For instance, people could end up with less coverage if, in reaction to the public program, private drug plans are curtailed or eliminated and the public plan ends up being less generous, she notes.
Beyond pharmacare, making predictions about what might happen during the next Parliament is a mug’s game.
The main parties still have to determine the priorities they’re ready to defend and where they’re open to negotiate. Add to that depleted election war chests and some post-election soul searching and you get a range of unpredictable outcomes.
One possible area of co-operation is the social and health policies under the rubric of a national seniors strategy, though the parties don’t always use that term. Canada is an aging nation, with new problems arising as people live longer and programs traditionally used to take care of the most vulnerable requiring overhauls.
The last Liberal government spent money on mental health, home and palliative care, marking an early acknowledgement of the scale of the issue and earmarking funds to target seniors in its housing strategy, but Canada is still mostly unprepared for the demographic shift that’s been upon us since 2015, when we first saw older adults outnumber children under age 15, a trend that’s expected to continue, says Montague. “Steps have been taken, but we’re still somewhere between tip-toeing around future-proofing policy and programs for an aging Canada and actually starting to address it.”
This time, the Liberals promised $6 billion over four years to improve family doctor access or primary care, set national standards for mental health services, improve homecare and palliative care, along with a pharmacare program.
The party also wants a national definition of elder abuse, as well as better data collection and enforcement on the issue. Between two and 10 per cent of older people suffer from elder abuse, meaning between 40,000 and 200,000 people in Ontario alone, according to Elder Abuse Ontario.
The Conservatives vowed to keep a seniors minister at the cabinet table, spend $1.5 billion on new MRI and CT machines, increase the funding formula for the Canada Health Transfer and Canada Social Transfer by three per cent and provide $15 million to implement a palliative care framework.
The NDP openly campaigned for a national seniors strategy that addresses isolation, poverty, dementia, elder abuse, affordable housing and expanding medicare into dental care costs.
Federal Retirees advocated for plans to create a strong continuum of care for older people, so several of those promises, as well as some from the Greens and the Bloc, could move the needle forward.
The minority government scenario, which gives more power to Parliamentary committees and backbenchers, is an advantage for the organization because it has more venues to push its agenda and find allies, says Montague. Several of the organization’s past collaborators, including former seniors minister and Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas MP Filomena Tassi, as well as Richmond Centre MP Alice Wong and North Island-Powell River MP Rachel Blaney, were re-elected, providing some inroads into the new make-up of power in Ottawa, she says.
One major uncertainty is whether the minority government will move ahead on boosting retirement security, an Association priority that barely had any media attention in the campaign.
The last government introduced a bill that would have allowed employers to convert defined-benefit pension plans into target-benefit plans, moving the risk from the employers to employees and changing deferred compensation after it’s been earned. After a backlash led by the Association, the Liberals never took C-27 past first reading. Despite assurances the bill is dead, Association volunteers in southwestern Ontario heard that it could be revived in in some form, putting the organization on watch, says Montague. The region, home to a good portion of Canada’s labour movement and one that’s experienced significant challenges when it comes to employer pension plans, is especially sensitive about protecting retirement security, she notes.
Other types of support for pensioners could see co-operation among the parties.
“Steps have been taken, but we’re still somewhere between tip-toeing around future-proofing policy and programs for an aging Canada, it and actually starting to address it.” — Sayward Montague
The Liberals promised to work with the provinces to increase the Canada Pension Plan and Quebec Pension Plan’s survivor’s benefit by 25 per cent, and to increase Old Age Security (OAS) by 10 per cent for recipients who turn 75 and earn less than $77,580.
The Conservatives vowed to increase the age tax credit by $1,000 and offer incentives to retirees who want to go back to work.
The NDP said they would create a one-year delay for seniors at risk of having their Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) suspended, create a mandatory, industry-financed pension insurance program and make OAS and GIS enrollment retroactive. It was the only party to directly mention stopping target-benefit plans like the kind proposed by Bill C-27.
The Greens campaigned to replace many pensioner programs with a guaranteed livable income and increase the target income replacement rate of the CPP to 50 per cent from 25 per cent.
The Bloc promised to increase how much seniors can make while receiving GIS, increase the GIS, make it easier for those over 65 to go back to work, and reform old-age pensions to protect household income gains.
The NDP, the Greens, and the Bloc all vowed to protect pensioners during employers’ bankruptcy proceedings, providing one clear space for co-operation.
Like retirement security, veterans’ issues received little attention in the campaign but are bound to crop up in public debate given their seriousness, says Montague. Thirty-two per cent of veterans have difficulty reintegrating into society after military service, with a higher prevalence, 42 per cent, among those who ended their service recently, according to Statistics Canada. While suffering from higher rates of medical problems like arthritis and anxiety, veterans are increasingly reporting dissatisfaction with their finances, the survey found.
The Liberals pledged to create a “rapid-response service” of social workers, case management counsellors, and others to ensure high-quality mental-health care. They also promised $3,000 in free counselling before a disability claim is required, a $2,500 tax-free relocation benefit for each move, and $15 million for new affordable housing units.
The Conservatives promised a new military covenant between the federal government and veterans and vowed to clear the backlog of veterans benefit application within 24 hours. They also said they would strike an independent inquiry into why armed forces members were given the anti-malarial drug mefloquine, which can cause severe psychological problems.
The NDP and the Greens promised major reviews of veterans’ benefits. The NDP would also increase the number of veteran caseworkers from one for every 32.5 veterans to one for every 25.
Montague points out that none of the parties mentioned increasing research on military and veteran women and responding to their unique needs, an emerging priority for the Association. Women in the armed forces experience service, including their injuries, differently than men, including different environmental exposure risks during their time in military service. The programs that do exist are generally designed by men and for men, says Montague.
Around 15 per cent of the armed forces are now women and that’s expected to rise to 25 per cent in the next few years, she says. “If services and programs are not meeting the needs of a quarter of the people who are effectively putting their life on the line in their service for Canada, we have a problem.”