Parties target seniors with promises

Two of Quebec’s three main parties wooed seniors on Day 14 of the provincial election campaign — one with the promise of air conditioning in long-term care facilities and the other with tax breaks for working longer.

Seniors who want to stay at work or return to their jobs will be able to suspend or postpone their pensions until the age of 75, Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard promised Wednesday. Those who choose to do so would get a tax break, he said.

“Vast majorities of seniors are healthy and a lot of them would like to stay at work longer even after they received their pensions,” Couillard said at a campaign stop in Sherbrooke, east of Montreal. “In the present system they won’t do it because it doesn’t make sense for them financially — because they will be taxed on their pension and working income. So we’re saying, you can suspend or postpone your pension so you won’t get taxed anymore.”

Couillard also promised to extend a tax credit for senior workers that would permit them to keep more money.

If the Liberals are re-elected, Couillard said his government would increase by $1,500 the financial ceiling for seniors to receive a tax credit, allowing them to keep an additional $150 a year.

Parti Quebecois Leader JeanFrancois Lisee, meanwhile, said his government would provide all long-term care facilities in the province with air conditioning within its first mandate.

After a summer of recordsetting temperatures, many elderly people in the facilities complained their living quarters were unbearably hot.

“Next summer there will be fewer jobs for journalists to go around in long-term care facilities in order to find out which ones are too hot,” Lisee said in Rimouski. “We will spend $100 million and outfit all long-term care centres and hospitals in Quebec with air conditioning.”