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Letter: Liberal government picking on seniors

My story begins on July 28, 2021. That is the day I checked to see if my pension cheque had come in and it had. However, I couldn’t believe it as it gone down from $1204.16 to $658 a month. Desperate, I finally got a hold of the government, I was told because I took CERB and received money from them, my total earnings for the year was $18,859 for the year of 2020 and that the government took part of the subsidy away from me.
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My story begins on July 28, 2021. That is the day I checked to see if my pension cheque had come in and it had. However, I couldn’t believe it as it gone down from $1204.16 to $658 a month. Desperate, I finally got a hold of the government, I was told because I took CERB and received money from them, my total earnings for the year was $18,859 for the year of 2020 and that the government took part of the subsidy away from me. If I would have been told this would happen, I would have borrowed from my family, because this has definitely hurt me financially.

I’m a senior, I just turned 65 in April, so my first cheque was $1,204.16 – and so was my cheque for June – so I went and rented a subsidized apartment in Red Deer. And now the goverment expects me to live on $1,024 a month ($658 plus my CPP). I can’t even afford to have this apartment now.

I would like the government to set up a budget that lets you live on that amount now that our groceries have went up, you need at least $100 a week for groceries and with rent, my phone, internet, medication and car insurance etc., it doesn’t leave enough to live on and to pay for gas, the extra bills which come to over $100 a month after Blue Cross, personal toiletries and all the little things that come up during the month.

Why does our Prime Minister want to pick on seniors, who aren’t rich, how can he sleep at night knowing I don’t have a home, that if it wasn’t for my sister I would be living on the streets.

Valeria Joyce Johnston, Red Deer