Hurting those who can least afford it

Sun Media reports on an annual exercise in absurdity, as Canadian seniors who don't pay federal income tax face the prospect of losing their low-income pension supplement due to a failure to file tax forms this year:

Thousands of Canada's poorest elderly citizens are having their low-income pension supplement cut off without advance warning because they didn't complete this year's tax forms.

Service Canada is being bombarded with calls from stunned seniors who received letters advising them they won't be getting monthly payments because they failed to file tax returns. Many seniors don't realize they must return tax forms even if they don't owe money.

One Service Canada operator told Sun Media about 75% of the current incoming calls are from worried seniors recently advised that their Guaranteed Income Supplement, which tops-up the Old Age Security pension, will be cancelled if they don't fill out a new application or file a tax return. Many of them will now have to wait several extra weeks to get the payment...

NDP seniors' issues critic Chris Charlton said the sudden cut-off is an annual problem caused by an "irresponsible policy."

While there can be little doubt that there's a need to keep track of supplement recipients through annual returns, there's still a serious problem with the current process as described in the article. There doesn't seem to be any reason at all why notices couldn't be sent with enough lead time to ensure that low-income seniors can respond without facing a multi-week delay in an already-meager payment. And it's an embarrassment to both past governments and the current one that such an obvious step hasn't been taken to ensure that Canada's low-income seniors are able to make ends meet.