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Member of Parliament

Hon. Judy A. Sgro

  • Member of Parliament
  • Liberal
  • Humber River—Black Creek
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 65%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $134,163.57

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 48 - Mar/29/22
Hon. Judy A. Sgro (Humber River—Black Creek, Lib.)
  • Mar/29/22 6:32:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am really pleased to stand and speak to the motion put forward by the hon. member for Etobicoke North. I listened to the previous speaker's comments about her mom being in a retirement home and the added expenses and so on. The whole core of the motion my colleague put forward is to talk about RRIFs and the fact that when someone is 71 years of age, they have to start taking out the money that they put away for years. That takes a lot of the money. People are living longer, and they are being forced to start taking money out at 71 years old, which often puts them in a higher tax bracket. By the time they are in their mid-80s, they often do not have any funds left. They were forced to take all of their savings when they did not even need it, and then they were taxed on it. As we promote RRIFs and RSPs and all these programs that we bring in, we have to pay attention to what happens when people get to be 71 and are forced to start taking money out of their RRSPs at a much higher tax rate. If a senior ends up in a retirement home or another centre when they are in their mid-80s, they have limited funds. How long is their money meant to last? The whole intent of the motion that my colleague has put forward is to focus on the issue of RRIFs and to get the government of the day to change the current system and allow people to hold on to their RRSPs until 75 or 80 or whatever the magic number is. People are living much longer, so they need to hold on to their money and not end up having to give it back to the taxman. Back in the days of the Harper government in 2010, I was the critic for seniors. We did a study and a white paper on the whole issue of what we needed to be doing for seniors. It was a variety of things. One of them was of course to change the RRIFs. That was in 2010. We were talking about the very issue that my colleague has on the table now, to change the RRIFs so we would not have to start pulling out all of our savings at 71 years of age. I would fully expect that everybody in the House would support something that makes sense and would end up helping seniors, because I know we all have the same feelings for seniors and we want to make sure we are helping them as much as we can. After this motion is passed, I would hope that within the 12-month period of time, the government would come back with a recommendation specifically saying that it is going to change the 71 years of age requirement to a minimum of 75 years of age to help the very seniors we are talking about. In this motion from my colleague, we are not talking about the OAS and the GIS and the seniors at that level. This is specific to the RRIF program. The withdrawal rules are outdated and antiquated, and as much as we have made a lot of changes and helped seniors a lot throughout the pandemic and so on, ultimately we have to change some parts of the tax system that penalize people. We do have a Minister of Seniors in the government now. We had a minister of seniors previously. Ms. Schulte was the first minister of seniors, and she spent an enormous amount of time and effort on behalf of all of seniors in Canada to bring forth a variety of changes. Whether we are talking about the OAS or the GIS, there were changes and constant discussions on how we could make the lives of our seniors that much better. Loud voices need to be happening. This motion gives us a chance to continue that discussion, but it has to be focused on the RRIFs. We need the tax changes to happen. The majority of Canadians are going to live long past the retirement age of 65. We know that. I believe the median age is already 84 or 85. I go to a lot of birthdays now for people who are 102 and 103. By the time they get there, they do not have anything left because they have taken the money out of their home and used it all. Retirement homes and nursing homes are quite expensive. The seniors who are calling us and talking to us want us to make sure that, if they are prepared to save their money and they have it, we should let them keep it and not force them into withdrawals so they end up not having the money to pay the bill at the retirement home. Then their children end up having to contribute more than what is necessarily the purpose for them to do. If we can stay focused on what the motion is about, we can have a discussion at committee so that we start talking about what tax changes can be made to help the very people that each and every one of us cares about in the House. The criticism is that it will be another study. However, it will be a study focused specifically on RRIFs, and it will give us a chance to have a bigger conversation about what happens when people are 65, 70 and 75. If they have savings, are they forced to take it out? Yes, currently they are forced to take it out and they end up having to give probably a good third of that back to the tax man. I am proud to be part of the government, but I am not proud to be under a government that is taking seniors' money and making them have to pay taxes on it. They worked all their lives to save that money. They should be allowed to take it out as they need it, not be forced to do so at any particular age. I want a complete abolition of having an age when we have to start withdrawing our RRSPs and the rest of it. The goal for me in supporting the motion is to see that it gets eliminated completely. If seniors have $100,000 in bank, let them draw it out as they need it as they get older, especially given the fact that people are living to 101 and 102 years old. That is the focus that I see in this motion. It is to keep these kinds of discussions going so that we all work together to get this change to happen. It will take all of us working together and pushing the government of the day to make this happen. In 12 months, there will be a report, whether we agree with it or not. If we do not agree with it, then it is up to us to change it. This is an opportunity for us all to make a difference here in the House on this motion, and I hope that everybody will support it. I know my colleague puts it forward with the utmost sincerity because she has seen it herself and wants to make sure that we make the changes that are going to help. Many of those changes could end up helping many of us in the House today.
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