On the Brink: More Ontario retirees speak out about cost of living woes

With costs rising and their retirement incomes not what they used to be, many Ontario seniors are struggling.

Following the relaunch of Global News’ On the Brink series, we received multiple replies from people who said they are in a similar situation to that of the couple featured.

Sharon McArthur, 74. and her 73-year-old husband, Wayne Gattinger, from Brooke-Alvinston, Ont., talked about how the cost of living has led them to have to stop having family dinners because.

Wendy Colman, 69, from Cornwall, Ont., lives with her daughter and granddaughter and said it is sad that things have reached this point.

She said over the last few years, she has been struggling with the cost of living in retirement.

“It’s hard on people, and I never thought that would be retirement,” she said. “No one had that conversation.”

Dawn Chaffe, 68, lives in St. Catherine’s, Ont., and said living on a single income has been hard.

“A lot of these people that are retired around me, nobody’s doing great, but because I’m single, it means you’re surviving on one CPP and old age security,” he said.

“I’ve just been gradually feeling more frustrated with the government and ever since COVID.”

Like the couple profiled in the first story, Chaffe said she also has to rely on food banks to supplement her food.

“I’m so broke that in February (for) my birthday, I didn’t have any money for groceries,” she said. “So I took some from a credit card, and you ended up balancing a high credit bill at the end of the month.”

John McLaughlin, 82, from London, Ont., said his dollars aren’t going as far as before.

McLaughlin said he retired in 2005 after working for the Bruce Nuclear Power Plant and worries long-term about his pension and retirement savings keeping pace with inflation.

“I thank God I did some savings and I got a good pension, because I’m watching almost monthly the devaluation of my assets,” he said amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war.

“So when you come into a big hit, like what we’re in now … you notice it even more.”

The second story in Global News’ relaunched On the Brink series is set to publish Saturday.

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