OTTAWA—Pension issues flared again in the Commons Tuesday as opposition MPs contended Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government should cut spending on prisons and military jets rather than retirees.

“A single F-35 costs $450 million,” said NDP finance critic Peter Julian. “That would pay Old Age Security benefits for 70,000 Canadian seniors. Its prison plan costs $19 billion. That would pay annual benefits for 2.9 million Canadians seniors. The Conservatives say costly prisons and fighter jets are their priority. We say seniors are more important.”

Toronto Liberal MP Judy Sgro said, “The government has caviar tastes when it comes to jets and jails, but a baloney budget when it comes to seniors.”

The Conservatives, who have been under fire since last week when Harper raised the possibility of changes to OAS, maintained Ottawa has no intention of reducing benefits for current pensioners or those nearing retirement.

“At the same time, we do have a responsibility to future generations,” Harper told Members of Parliament. Opposition parties may pretend there is no long-term affordability problem with OAS, Harper added. But “this government has the responsibility of making sure that we take care of seniors today and also take care of future generations,” the Prime Minister said.

The Conservatives haven’t said how they would change OAS, which is available to all qualifying Canadians at age 65 and supplements the Canada Pension Plan for millions of modest income seniors. But speculation has focused on raising the age requirement by two years, to age 67, to begin collecting OAS benefits. And opposition parties have been hammering Harper for using a speech in Davos, Switzerland, last week to unveil his plan to alter OAS payments.

Saying Harper misled voters, Liberal Leader Bob Rae quoted from Conservative campaign documents in the May election that said: “We will not cut transfer payments to individuals or to the provinces for essential things like health care, education and pensions.”

Speaking to reporters later, Rae added, “The Prime Minister has broken his word to Canadians on a subject that is of great concern to them and that is their security in old age. And it is unbelievable to me that the Prime Minister would be allowed to get away with this.”

The government has said its long-term plan to make OAS sustainable in the years ahead will be detailed in the federal budget expected in March.

In another controversial move, the Conservatives are using their majority in Parliament to curtail debate on legislation to develop a new pension savings option. Debate at second reading stage on the proposed Pooled Registered Pension Plans (PRPP) will be limited to two days.

The PRPP is a voluntary plan that would involve insurance companies and other financial institutions to administer a new pension savings network designed to make it simpler and cheaper for small companies to offer employee-sponsored pension plans to their employees. But critics say the public would have benefitted more from an increase in premiums and benefits under the publicly run Canada Pension Plan.

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