On Parliament Hill

Canadian seniors have played a central part in building this country and they have earned our respect and admiration. They deserve our support to help them enjoy the best quality of life possible. Our government continues to translate that support into grassroots initiatives such as the New Horizons for Seniors Program, also known as NHSP. By supporting New Horizons for Seniors Program projects, we are acting to ensure that seniors maintain a good quality of life and continue to be active members of their communities.

Last week I announced funding for eleven community seniors groups under the NHSP program and had the pleasure of travelling across my riding of Provencher to meet with these groups and congratulate them in person.

Successful applicants this year include organizations from St Adolphe, Hadashville, Ste Agathe, Morris, St Jean Baptiste, Piney, Ste Anne, Middlebro, LaBroquerie and Paradise Village.

Since 2006, the New Horizons for Seniors Program has funded more than 13,000 projects in hundreds of communities across Canada. Our Economic Action Plan 2014 (EAP 2014) proposes an additional $5 million per year for New Horizons.

The program’s five objectives are:

• promoting volunteerism among seniors and other generations;
• engaging seniors in the community through the mentoring of others;
• expanding awareness of elder abuse, including financial abuse;
• supporting the social participation and inclusion of seniors; and
• providing capital assistance for new and existing community projects and programs for seniors.

The Government of Canada is working hard to help improve the lives of seniors on many other fronts as well. Other efforts include:

• a top-up to the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) in 2011 to help Canada’s most vulnerable seniors. This was the largest increase in 25 years to the GIS for the lowest-income seniors. This measure further improves the financial security and well-being of more than 680 000 seniors across Canada;
• providing $2.7 billion in 2013 in tax relief to seniors and pensioners through measures such as pension income splitting and increasing the Age Credit;
• providing $400 million over two years under Canada’s Economic Action Plan for the construction of housing units for low-income seniors;
• actions to address elder abuse, including awareness campaigns, projects funded by the NHSP to raise awareness of elder abuse and legislation to help ensure consistently tough penalties for offences involving the abuse of elderly people; and
• redeveloping seniors.gc.ca as a central resource for seniors including a new Information for Seniors section that brings together a variety of federal, provincial/territorial and municipal resources about relevant programs and benefits.

Our Government is committed to ensuring that the “golden years” of our seniors are truly “golden”. With programs like New Horizons for Seniors we will continue to meet the needs of seniors, now and into the future.