COVID-19 layoffs have workers wondering: Should I take a lump sum now or a future pension later?

By: Doug Chandler and Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald

Defined benefit pension plan members facing pandemic-related permanent layoffs will have to make an important financial decision: take the lump sum now or the future pension later. Canadian pension plans must give terminating employees who are not eligible to start drawing their pensions yet the option of portability. That means giving up their lifetime monthly retirement pension for a lump sum settlement, known as the commuted value.

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Canada’s Hidden Shame: How COVID-19 Exposed Years of Systemic Neglect in Long-Term Care

By: Alex Roslin

Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research and Co-Chair of the NIA, said they include more widespread COVID-19 testing in homes, staff wearing masks around all residents, curbing non-essential visits and barring employees from working at more than one home. In his role as co-chair of Ryerson University’s National Institute on Ageing and an adviser on seniors to federal and provincial authorities, he has been pleading for these four protective measures since late March.

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Rally calls for easing of strict visitor rules at Nova Scotia long-term care homes

By: Jesse Thomas

Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research and Co-Chair of the NIA in Toronto, says protecting patients and allowing them the freedom to see their family is a fine balance. Sinha says the pandemic has revealed just how integral the role of a family caregiver is inside a long-term care home. “I think now we started realizing very quickly on, as we locked these homes down, that my goodness, we might have lost 50 per cent of the care that was actually occurring in these homes on an unpaid basis by family caregivers and friends,” said Sinha.

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Expert blasts N.S. for withholding COVID-19 long term care data

By: Andrew Rankin

“If Nova Scotia is not willing to be transparent about their data then I ask the questions - what are you hiding and why are you hiding it?" said Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research and co-chair of the National Institute on Ageing (NIA) at Ryerson University in Toronto.

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The post-pandemic future: We will stop warehousing older people in care homes

By: Dr. Samir Sinha

In a country of 84,000 doctors, I’m one of only 304 geriatricians. Canada is not prepared to meet the needs of an aging population, and this is clear when we look at the physical set-up of our long-term care homes. Covid provides an opportunity to reimagine how we look after our aging population.

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Ontario Families Fight For More Long-Term Care Visits Before 2nd Wave Hits

By: Sherina Harris

Now is the right time to allow families to visit loved ones in long-term care homes, said Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research and Co-Chair of the NIA. Although it had some promising signs, Ontario’s most recent guidance on visiting policies doesn’t go far.enough to find a balance between the risks the virus poses and the benefits of family visits, Sinha said.

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One in nine newly admitted long-term care residents could be cared for at home, report says

By: Jill Mahoney

Nathan Stall, Associate Fellow at the NIA in Toronto, said even modest investments in the home care system would divert a substantial number of seniors from more expensive nursing home beds. “The return on investment is obvious and profound when it comes to investing in home care and being able to avoid the need for long-term care,” he said.

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Should more Canadians put off taking CPP payments?

By Leo Almazora

Prepared by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) and the Society of Actuaries, the report titled The CPP Take-Up Decision focused on workers retiring at age 65 with plans to use some portion of their RRSP or RRIF savings to augment their retirement consumption. It relied on an analytical framework that compares two financial strategy options which differ only in the timing of the choice to take CPP.

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New report highlights financial considerations of delaying CPP payments

A retiree faces a 50 per cent probability of receiving more income by delaying Canada Pension Plan payments, according to a new report by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries and the Society of Actuaries.

The report, authored by Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald, director of financial security research at Ryerson University’s National Institute on Ageing, investigated the financial considerations of delaying CPP payments and looked at the risks and opportunities associated with the delay.

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Most clients should wait to claim CPP payments: report

By: Michelle Schriver

Should your client delay claiming their Canada Pension Plan (CPP) payments? A new report commissioned by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) and the Society of Actuaries provides insight to help answer that question.

The CPP Take-Up Decision investigated the financial consequences of delaying CPP payments for five years by looking at workers retiring at age 65 who had sufficient savings to begin drawing CPP pension income at age 70 instead.

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Isolation may be a greater risk than COVID-19 for residents of Canada's nursing homes

By: Anita Elash

Nursing homes across Canada have recently started to open their doors to family visits. Experts are starting to lobby governments to expedite these reopenings. Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA in Toronto, supported the initial lockdown. He saw a few weeks of lockdown as “a necessary evil,” reasoning that “it’s not going to be great but [that] we have to weigh risks and benefits.”

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Special report: Protecting seniors’ homes from the pandemic's next wave

By: Stéfan Labbe

These are often the frailest of Canadians, caught in a system experts say has long been neglected, where unregulated government transfers make up only two-thirds of the OECD average and often fail to ensure adequate care. “We failed long-term care in Canada,” said Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA.

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Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA, joins Commons Pandemic podcast. Four months after the first outbreak in a Canadian nursing home, over 7000 long-term residents have died of COVID-19. But if you look at the news or social media or our political debates, it seems like we’ve already moved on.

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‘I can’t go and touch her.’ Long-term-care homes finally open their doors to visitors, but distancing in many remains

By: Moira Welsh

Seniors’ advocates, like Dr. Nathan Stall, Associate Fellow at the National Institute of Ageing, say socially distanced visits are not enough to help residents who are suffering without the family or friends who previously helped with daily feeding, bathing and important emotional connections. Without the people they rely on, some residents have given up and lost the ability to walk or talk.

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More COVID-19 deaths at for-profit nursing homes in Ontario, study finds

By: Colin Perkel

Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA, not involved in the study, said 30,000 long-term care beds in Ontario are in dire need of upgrades. "Many of these older multi-bedded homes happen to be owned by for-profits," Sinha said. "The study really speaks to the need to redevelop that." The government of Premier Doug Ford initially promised to build 15,000 beds in five years and redevelop another 15,000, Sinha said.

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Ken Connors in for Aaron Rand with Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald, Director of Financial Security Research at the National Institute on Ageing at Ryerson University in Toronto. To discuss why only 1 per cent of Canadians delay their pension.

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Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA, spoke to CTV News about Ontario’s improved visitor policies for long-term care homes. “This is a welcome advancement but we’re still finding challenges, when homes are actually the ones in charge of organizing the visits.”

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