Seniors cut off from income supplement after receiving emergency benefits

Chris Sherlock is facing possible eviction because of unanticipated clawbacks to the guaranteed income supplement for seniors.

The 65-year-old resident of British Columbia’s Cowichan Valley drew on emergency benefits last year after the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out his part-time work as a musician.

Now the $2,000 a month in Canada Emergency Response Benefit he received through much of 2020 has rendered him ineligible for the income supplement typically available to low-income seniors.

“This comes as a complete shock to me,” said Sherlock, who worked on contract as a tree planter for two decades and has no company pension.

“No one â ¦ warned me that I would be losing my guaranteed income supplement because of this. There was nothing about having your pension cut in half for the next two years.”

Sherlock is not the only one blindsided. New Democrats and Greens say they’ve have been flooded with calls from Canadians aged 65 and up who suddenly find themselves cut off from monthly government payments due to the pandemic benefits they relied on last year.

In a letter sent to three Liberal cabinet ministers, NDP MP Daniel Blaikie said many seniors who received the CERB and Canada Recovery Benefit either do not qualify for the guaranteed income supplement or face drastic deductions to it.

“They’re just not going to have enough income at the end of the month in order to pay their bills. And what we feared would happen last year will end up happening this year,” Blaikie said in an interview.

“It’s not right of us to do this to Canada’s poorest seniors.”

Blaikie is calling for a “prompt solution” and hoping that the federal government will change its approach to slashing the guaranteed income supplement based on benefits.