Mr. Speaker, of course, I was remiss in not acknowledging the work that Mike Savage had done along with Tony Martin. I know they worked very hard together and were strong voices in the House for a poverty reduction strategy.
When we talk about how much money over how long, I acknowledge that what New Democrats have put forward today is a pragmatic, practical, and feasible solution that is fiscally possible in our current climate. However, is it enough? Absolutely not. I would argue that we need that plan I was talking about and that Tony and Mike had worked on. We need a national act for poverty elimination in this country.
When people talk about how seniors' poverty has been reduced over the years, over the last 30 years it has come down, but the current government can take no credit for this. It came about because of the implementation of the GIS and the CPP.
A couple of decades ago we started to see Canadians receiving their full entitlement under the Canada pension plan. That is when we started to see the poverty rates for seniors start to come down. We have hit the bottom of that curve now and poverty for seniors is starting to trend up again.
I would argue that this is a good first step toward helping seniors live a more dignified life.