"Contrary to popular opinion, the war on poverty among seniors is not yet over," said the report, A Pension Primer. "Poverty rates have indeed declined more or less steadily within the past generation, but 17 percent of Canadians 65 and older were poor in 1997."

The overall poverty rate for seniors can be misleading, because poverty rates for married seniors are very low and poverty rates for seniors living on their own are very high. The poverty rate for unattached women 65 and over was 42 percent in 1997 -- the second highest rate for any of the eight major family types in Canada.

A Pension Primer is an updated version of earlier reports by the National Council of Welfare that describe the three levels of Canada's retirement system. Although the system as a whole has improved markedly over the years, there are still major problems that governments have not yet addressed.

"The sad truth about the last several years is that most governments have been more interested in extracting money from seniors than helping them maintain a decent standard of living," the report concludes.

At the first level of the retirement income system, combined federal and provincial benefits are not high enough to get most seniors over the poverty line. The last major increase in federal benefits for seniors was an increase in the Guaranteed income Supplement at the end of 1984. The last increase even proposed by Ottawa was an increase of $10 a month per household in 2001 as part of the switch to the proposed new Seniors Benefit. Plans for the benefit were subsequently abandoned by the federal government.

At the second level, the shortcoming of the Canada Pension Plan and Quebec Pension Plan that overshadows all others is the low limit on retirement benefits. The plans were designed to replace a maximum of 25 percent of earnings up to the average industrial wage. That's not enough to keep most seniors out of poverty. The last round of changes in the CPP, however, showed that the federal government and most provincial governments were much more interested in trimming benefits than enhancing them.

The occupational pension plans and registered retirement saving plan (RRSPs) in the third level of the system work very well -- but only for the people who are able to take advantage of them. Many employers in the private sector have not set up plans for their workers. And in terms of private savings, many poor people do not have the money to contribute to RRSP.

The latest Statistics Canada figures show that the total poverty gap for seniors -- or the amount of money it would have taken to raise the incomes of all poor seniors up to the poverty line -- was just under $1.5 billion in 1997.

That may sound like a lot of money, but it is a very small percentage of federal government spending. Ottawa could get the money to wipe out poverty among seniors simply by converting tax deductions for RRSPs to tax credits. Tax credits would give the same tax break to all people who contribute to RRSPs, and they would save the federal government about $2 billion a year in lost revenue. The $2 billion could be used to help low-income seniors.

The National Council of Welfare is a citizens' advisory group to the Minister of Human Resources Development.