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“Of simple changes you can make, this one is very attractive because … it’s a lot better to have to work in your mid-60s than it is to have to work in your 80s or 90s,” he said.

The key difference between Harper’s likely plan and what Mulroney attempted, MacKinnon pointed out, was the latter would have affected all OAS recipients — present and future.

“You could cut everybody’s Old Age Security, whether they’re 66 or 95. That’s a way of saving money. But I think people would think that’s both not very fair and not very efficient,” he said. “The 95-year-old can’t very easily go back to work to supplement a pension that’s been cut… It’s certainly a lot easier, in general, for someone who is 66 to work than someone who is 86 to work.”

However, Tyler Meredith, research director of aging issues for the Montreal-based Institute for Research on Public Policy, said pushing old age pension eligibility up by two years could be problematic.

“If it is going to be a broad, across-the-board increase in the eligibility for OAS, then that will have some significant consequences for low- and modest-income individuals,” Meredith said.

He said he’s not opposed to the general idea of adapting social-retirement programs to the realities of an aging population, and the fact people work longer than in the past. But Meredith said policy changes should be flexible for people whose financial means and physical ability to work are more limited.

Tina Di Vito, head of the BMORetirement Institute, agreed that low-income seniors would be hurt most by moving up the OAS eligibility age. She added that it could also affect plans of middle-income people who were planning a move to a partial retirement at the age of 65, assuming they would get some money from OAS.