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Thursday, June 18, 2015 - The IFP - H alton H ills - w w w .theifp.ca Page 7 Furnace Air Conditioning Gaslines Boilers Water Heaters Radiant Heating 905-877-3100 proud local dealer of Canadian made products .ca • Truck Accessories • Upholstery • Heavy Equipment Glass •Window Tinting 354 Guelph Street, Georgetown 905-873-1655 We handle all insurance work. Time to Move? Call Derek CallDerek.ca 905-877-8262 Derek Dunphy Sales Representative COMMENT The way we were Local resident Barry Shepherd (#5 in the above photo) came across this picture of a boys' youth soccer team that started up in Georgetown in 1959 by his father Bert. The team was sponsored by the YMCA but couldn't afford jerseys so coach Shepherd borrowed some basketball tops from a school. After the town erected goal posts at the Georgetown Fairgrounds, the team played a few games against neighbouring towns. Getting their kicks Ross Pezzack took this photo of trilliums on the Bruce Tail. The adoption of an official flower for Ontario in 1937 came out of a desire during the First World War to pick a national floral emblem suitable for planting on the graves of Canadian servicemen overseas. Have a photo you want to share? Email cgamble@theifp.ca TRAIL ART From our readers Seniors deserve our support Canada's seniors have played an important role in shaping the strong and prosperous Canada that we enjoy today. Canada's strong, diversified retirement in- come system is based on two pil- lars: public and private respon- sibility. These two pillars ensure Canadians maintain a basic stan- dard of living in retirement. The first pillar in- cludes the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), Old Age Security (OAS) and Guaran- teed Income Supple- ment (GIS). The CPP, OAS and GIS provide approximately $76 bil- lion every year in fully indexed retirement in- come payments. The second in- cludes private pen- sion plans, personal investments and tax-assisted registered plans, such as Registered Pension Plans (RPPs), Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs), Regis- tered Retirement Income Funds (RRIFs) and Tax-Free Savings Ac- counts (TFSA). Over the last 10 years, the gov- ernment introduced several new measures to assist seniors and pensioners. In 2011, the govern- ment significantly enhanced the GIS for the low-income seniors, by increasing the GIS up to $600 annually for single seniors and up to $840 for couples. This enhance- ment benefited approximately 680,000 seniors across Canada. It was the biggest enhancement of the GIS in over 25 years. In 2006, the government in- creased the Age Credit amount by $1,000, and again in 2009 by an additional $1,000. The govern- ment also doubled, to $2,000, the maximum amount of income eligible for the Pension Income Credit. In addition, the govern- ment also introduced pension in- come splitting for seniors, which allows a senior to split their income with their spouse and reduce their taxes payable. Thanks, in part, to these measures the number of low-income seniors in Canada has decreased from 21.4 per cent in 1980 to 5.2 per cent in 2011--one of the lowest rates in the developed world. However, the gov- ernment understands that more can always be done. The recent federal budget will reduce mini- mum withdrawal rates for RRIFs to allow seniors to reduce their taxes and preserve more of their capital. This change also better reflects recent real rates of return and expected inflation. In addi- tion, the federal budget proposes to increase the TFSA contribution limit from $5,500 to $10,000. This will help Canadians save even more, tax-free, for their retire- ment. For more information on gov- ernment assistance for Canadian seniors, please do not hesitate to contact my office at (866) 878- 5556 or by e-mail at michael. chong@parl.gc.ca MICHAEL CHONG