A taxpayer-funded think tank is calling on cabinet to trim nearly $14 billion a year from benefits paid to retirees, arguing programs like Old Age Security are too generous for households with six-figure incomes.Generation Squeeze, a University of British Columbia group that once pushed for a national home equity tax, said pension programs should be scaled back to reflect “today’s needs.” According to Blacklock's Reporter, its budget submission to the Commons finance committee recommended a $6.9 billion reduction in age and pension tax credits and $7 billion in changes to Old Age Security, including lowering clawback thresholds from $187,000 to $100,000 in household income.“Old Age Security delivers $18,000 a year in taxpayer-funded cash benefits to retired couples with $180,000 in income,” the group wrote in its brief Recommendations For The Carney Government’s First Budget. “It’s appropriate to ask retirees with six-figure incomes to accept fewer taxpayer dollars.”.The report contrasted Old Age Security with the Canada Child Benefit, which begins clawbacks at $79,000 in family income, despite higher poverty among young households.Generation Squeeze has previously received $450,000 in federal grants for a 2022 paper advocating a $5.8 billion annual home equity tax. The proposal was never adopted, though the group in 2024 hosted then-prime minister Justin Trudeau at a closed-door meeting.Old Age Security this year is projected to cost $88 billion, said the Auditor General. By 2026 pensioners will number about 8.4 million, or 20% of the population, far more than children.Federal figures show most seniors, 59%, own their homes and have lower poverty rates than families with children. Some 80% of Old Age Security recipients earn more than $60,000 annually, according to a 2023 actuarial report tabled in Parliament.In 2021 Parliament spent $1.4 billion a year to provide a $500 top-up to retirees over 75. “We all know that no one has been hit harder by this health crisis over the past 14 months than seniors,” then-finance minister Chrystia Freeland said at the time. “Our government is grateful for the contribution that seniors made.”
