The federal government is disputing a statistic used in MP Rachel Blaney’s recent statement on seniors’ eligibility for the Guaranteed Income Supplement and the government’s new policy of automatically enroling people who reach the age of 65.
“We understand that a group, in this case the FADOQ, is saying that 444,000 are not receiving a benefit that they might be entitled to,” says Mathieu Filion, director of communications for Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Jean-Yves Duclos.
“This number is totally false and doesn’t represent the reality at all,” Filion continues. “The number we have is closer to 50,000 and ESDC already reached out to all of them in the last few month to check why they did not registered to this benefit. With the new auto-enrollment service, this number will drop to zero within a few month.
“As Minister responsible for Seniors, Jean-Yves Duclos pledged in early 2016 that he would put in place the auto-enrollment to GIS in 2018 and it is now a reality that helps 17,000 seniors each month to receive automatically their GIS benefits.”
The announcement of the government’s policy change can be found here.