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One needs to ask then if this indicates that the OAS system is unsustainable. Are we f acing a demographic avalanche or a glacier? Secondly, raising the eligibility age f or OAS is regressive legislation. It is well known that wealthy Canadians live longer than poorer Canadians. Look at a blue-collar worker with less than high school education who retires at age 65. T hat persons lif e expectancy could easily be around 10 years. If you raise the age of eligibility f or OAS f rom 65 to 67, you remove 20% of that persons expected benef its. A wealthy Canadian, on the other hand, could just as easily be looking at a lif e expectancy of 20 years. T hus, moving this persons age of eligibility up by the same two years is a 10% reduction in their benef its. T hus, we see that two key questions need to be addressed in the upcoming debate. First, is raising the age of eligibility f or OAS really necessary or is the system sustainable as is? Second, how does one justif y a public policy shif t that is so clearly regressive in its impact? Let the f act-based debate begin. Robert L. Brown is an expert advisor with EvidenceNetwork.ca and a Fellow with the Canadian Institute of Actuaries. He was Professor of Actuarial Science at the University of Waterloo for 39 years and a past president of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries.