Falling through the cracks
Wed, October 08 2008
And yet these monthly benefits aren’t available to immigrant seniors, even if they are Canadians.
Since 1952, the Old Age Security Act [OAS] has been amended nearly a dozen times to provide universal access to a pension.
And still the 10-year residency requirement after age 18 remains, creating a “two-tier citizenship” that negatively impacts one of the most vulnerable groups in Canadian society.
During this 10 year wait for benefits, many immigrant seniors are silently slipping through the cracks into poverty.
Canada’s Alternative Planning Group - an inter-ethnic community advocacy group based in Ontario - is releasing a report on the issue this week, and is pushing the plight of immigrant seniors to the forefront in the Canadian federal election with an all-candidates debate Wednesday with 80 seniors from various ethnic backgrounds.
“This lack of needed income leaves immigrant seniors very vulnerable to poverty and social isolation,” the APG said in a statement.
“Together with other intersecting issues like language barriers, cultural differences, ever-increasing cost of living, lack of affordable social housing, immigrant seniors are often entrapped in social isolation and financial dependence.”
The APG has found in its study of immigrant seniors that many are living their lives with less than $3-to-$5 in their pockets.
“This project . . . gives a voice to some of the most marginalized people in our community,” said Karen Sun of the Chinese Canadian National Council, and one of the co-authors of the report.
Unlike the Canadian Pension Plan or Employment Insurance, OAS is not a contribution-based program – no one pays directly into OAS in order to receive benefits.
OAS is funded by Canadians – and by residents who are not Canadian citizens - through income, provincial, and federal taxes.
Colleen Beaumier, Liberal MP for Brampton West in Ontario and a well-known human rights activist, sponsored Bill C-362, which proposed to reduce the 10 year residency requirement to three years.
The bill had non-partisan support among the opposition but it was opposed twice by Stephen Harper’s minority Conservative government during debates.
Beaumier says that if immigrant seniors can qualify to become Canadian citizens after three years of residency, they should be entitled to all the rights of a Canadian, including an old age penison.
Her research shows that 32,300 immigrant seniors would have benefited in 2008 if the OAS residency requirement had been reduced from 10 years to three years.
While the residency change would cost an estimated $700 million, Beaumier believes that ordinary Canadians want a social and just Canadian pension system.
“Seniors are always a forgotten issue,” she says. “There’s a mistaken view that seniors don’t contribute to society.”
Beaumier argues that Canada wouldn’t be accepting, encouraging, or advertising for senior immigrants if they didn’t contribute to society.
Dr. Daniel Lai, a University of Calgary Professor and an Alberta Heritage Health Scholar agrees with Beaumier.
“It doesn’t make sense to have a two-tier citizenship,” says Lai, adding that research among immigrant seniors’ indicates they are less advantaged in terms of income.
According to the national census, nearly 20 per cent of immigrant seniors have an annual income below the low-income cutoff. The percentage of Canadian-born seniors is lower, at 17 per cent.
There’s often a misconception that immigrant seniors (or seniors in general) don’t contribute to society, says Lai.
But both Beaumier and Lai explain that young immigrant families rely on their parents for daycare, a services that allows parents to work as contributing Canadians.
Immigrant seniors also often devote their time as volunteer advocates who help new immigrants integrate into Canadian society.
S.U.C.C.E.S.S., a non-partisan organization in Vancouver that helps new immigrants settle into Canada is well-recognized for its fundraising abilities. Volunteers there say seniors who struggle with poverty face social isolation due to the cost of public transportation, which limits their participation in their communities.
And for some immigrant families, the added 10 years of sole financial responsibility for their parents can be trying, particularly when they themselves struggle with employment issues like earning a living wage and getting their foreign credentials recognized by Canadian employers.
While some immigrants can take advantage of Canada’s reciprocal agreements with other countries to receive sundry benefits during the 10 year wait, the majority of Canada’s immigrants come from India and China, which do not currently have reciprocal pension agreements with Canada.
Without OAS benefits, immigrant seniors do not qualify for the Guaranteed Income Supplement, a monthly benefit paid to residents of Canada who have little or no other income.
Nor can they qualify for a survivor allowance, a monthly non-taxable benefit for low-income widowed spouses who are not yet eligible for OAS.
Bill C-362 died when the election was called.
The bill may be reintroduced in the House of Commons after the election, or a similar bill could take its place. Or it may not.
Wendy Yuen, the Liberal candidate in the immigrant-rich riding of Vancouver-Kingsway, argues that due to the Conservative’s “economic mismanagement” over the past two years, the Liberals cannot currently commit to removing, or reducing the residency requirement for immigrant seniors.
But it will, she says, remain a “long-term” goal.
The Conservatives stand by their decision to restrict the waiting period to 10 years while Don Davies, the NDP Vancouver-Kingsway candidate, reiterated his party’s support for a reduction of the residency requirement.
by Amy Chow
Tell us what you think
Reader comments are edited for clarity and may be selected to appear in the print version of the Asian Pacific Post.
