Liberal Part-Time Citizens – Liifetime Pay Cheque
September 01, 2010
Canadians are proud that our success as a society has been due to the contributions of immigrants from all over the world who have joined with the aboriginal community to build our nation, which fairly and reasonably legislates prerequisites for all citizens to access social benefits.Our Old Age Security pension benefit qualifiers are designed to strike a balance between the many years of contributions of individuals to our society with publicly paid benefits received in their old age. It is reasonable to expect someone to at least reside in Canada for a minimum consistent period before being granted this benefit. The ten-year minimum residency requirement now in place is considered by most as generous and reasonable. Reducing the residency requirement, as proposed by a Liberal Member of Parliament in Bill C-428, would seem to mock those who have contributed steadfastly to our economy and our society for 30 years or more.
The Liberal Bill C-428 would allow a citizen to become a pensioner by accumulating only three years of total residency, which includes time in refugee and permanent resident status, over 20 years; while the remaining 17 years could be residing in another country.
This fiscally irresponsible Liberal plan would give many thousands of barely part-time citizens a lifetime pay cheque at taxpayer expense and, also, automatically allow them the Guaranteed Income Supplement for even more taxpayer funds.
It would be irresponsible for our Conservative government to adopt a policy that would cost taxpayers many hundreds of millions of dollars per year to give tens of thousands of part-time citizens a lifetime pay cheque, just to give the Liberals a few more votes.
I certainly will not be supporting this Bill and I am pleased that neither will our Conservative government.
What do you think?