When the federal government announced its support package last week, it said it would top up the housing benefit for renters, double the sales tax rebate that low-income earners receive, and start funding a previously promised dental-care plan.
Read more: Trudeau’s cost-of-living help
“You’ve got to consider people’s specific situation and plan for that. To draw a broad conclusion about what somebody should do is difficult,” said Sievert. “You really need to sit down with a client and talk through the overall situation. That’s what I’m recommending to my clients so we can sit down and look at all aspects and determine how it affects them and what action they should take.”
While Sievert is in the middle of reviewing his client list and triggering those meetings, he said he’s getting far more questions from clients about inflation and rising interest rates, especially from those who are “trying to organize for their last chapter” as they prepare for retirement.
He’s already been calculating the rising rate of inflation into their projections, but said clients are concerned about things like the cost of transportation to visit children and grandchildren in other placess or whether they should pay off car loans or mortgages before they retire. He works through their questions with them, looking at whether they can pay off more of their variable-rate mortgages faster, particularly if they’d previously opted to earn more in their investment portfolios.
