The committee studied the financial vulnerability of seniors and elder abuse, hearing from Pierre Lynch of the Association québécoise de défense des droits des personnes retraitées et préretraitées, Vé Mikaelian and Sylvie St-Amand of the Fédération des femmes du Québec, Rose Joudi of HelpAge Canada, Joanne Blinco of the Alberta Elder Abuse Awareness Council, Sonia Côté of the Association d'entraide Le Chaînon, and Detective Michael Payne of the Waterloo Regional Police Service.
Pierre Lynch argued that the market basket measure used to set Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement is too low for dignified living, and that benefits offered only at age 70 or 75 are inconsistent with a retirement age of 65. He recommended that the committee examine unequal downstream impacts and prioritize assistance for the most vulnerable, noting that 38.4% of Quebec seniors have no private pension income and six in ten of those are women living alone.
Vé Mikaelian and Sylvie St-Amand stated that financial vulnerability is rooted in structural inequalities from the gendered division of labour, and that social isolation and the digital divide are key factors in financial abuse. They recommended significantly strengthening federal income supports with attention to women's differentiated realities, investing in humane and accessible fraud prevention, and providing recurrent funding for women's centres and community organizations to break isolation.
Rose Joudi highlighted that abuse of older women is hidden and under-reported, with financial exploitation and coercive control more common than physical violence, and that ageism acts as a structural risk factor. She recommended addressing economic and social conditions that create vulnerability long before harm occurs, and noted that older women often want safety while maintaining dignity and connection rather than solutions requiring them to leave their homes.
Joanne Blinco reported that in Alberta, 70% of elder abuse case files involved women, with 55% of abuse perpetrated by family members and 24% by intimate partners, and that coercive control often underlies these situations. She recommended that policy and legal frameworks recognize coercive control to enable earlier and more effective responses, and noted that coordinated community response teams in Alberta are effective but not available in other regions.
Sonia Côté stated that nearly 40% of women her organization assists are over 50, 56% report abuse, and 25% have been evicted, with financial insecurity as the common thread leading to homelessness. She recommended securing housing through flexible resources outside the traditional rental market, strengthening the social safety net with increased funding for programs like Reaching Home, and establishing trusts dedicated exclusively to rent to quickly secure housing for women.
Detective Michael Payne reported that older adults over 60 lost $178 million to fraud in 2024, with only 5-10% of incidents reported, and that AI and deepfake technology have fundamentally changed the fraud landscape. He urged the government to consider policies requiring platforms to deploy real-time fraud alerts and AI detection tools, and recommended a national fraud response strategy including federally funded victim services, cross-jurisdictional investigation teams, and AI-powered early warning systems.
During questions, Lynch agreed that the GIS household-to-single threshold drop is out of touch with reality, and that the gap in core housing need widens for women over 75. Joudi noted that language barriers and isolation make older women more vulnerable to scams, and that ageism begins at 45 for women, contributing to long-term unemployment. Blinco said that a shift toward direct caregiver benefits could reduce elder abuse by alleviating financial desperation. Côté added that women face four major challenges—low income, physical health issues, mental health issues, and residential instability—and that the number of newcomer women in precarious situations has nearly doubled in five years. Payne stated that the national anti-fraud strategy does not impact his work and that financial institutions could do more with mandatory pause-and-verify procedures.
No procedural debate, motions, or votes occurred during the meeting.
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