Status of Women committee  Do I have time to add something?

Status of Women committee  This is not the main answer to your question, but I'm reminded of an incident that happened with my mother when she was about 78 or so. I had met her family doctor, and I agreed with her that he didn't seem that interested in her. She simply called him on it one day when she saw that he wasn't listening.

Status of Women committee  I think there needs to be a particular focus on medication. Getting older means taking more medication—not for absolutely everybody, but in general it does. I watched my parents experience that. I've experienced that myself. I take things now that I didn't take when I was 25 years old.

Status of Women committee  No, and it's more complicated in Quebec, because you have to operate in two languages. It's interesting that you asked this question. At the moment we're working on preparing an entire-day conference on this very subject. Recently we had a brief presentation on just the programs—the revenue programs and the deduction options that are available for seniors and that are available for caregivers—and it's much more complicated than I ever realized.

Status of Women committee  In brief, in the preparation for the conference, yes, there will be experts who will provide that help, but I think you're talking about what happens after that. That's harder to organize. Community organizations in Quebec play a pretty big role in the English-speaking community, but they need to access these kinds of expertise.

Status of Women committee  I think the question sort of answers itself for me. When I look at the number of English-speaking senior women who are living on or under $20,000 a year, I see it's a substantial percentage. I think the provision you're talking about would have helped some of those women. I think it's pretty easy to conclude that, yes, measures like that would be helpful.

Status of Women committee  I'm not familiar with a drop-out provision.

Status of Women committee  I was just going to say that where the federal government is able to transfer focused funds to the provincial government for specific purposes—and I'm not an expert in that field—to indicate that the federal government is willing to focus on English-speaking senior women, the provincial government then knows that there's a source of funding to take some of those differences into consideration.

Status of Women committee  That's a challenging question. First of all, I'm pleased to meet you. Our office was in your riding at one point, on Décarie Boulevard.

Status of Women committee  As I mentioned at the beginning, one raison d'être of Seniors Action Quebec is to advocate on behalf of the English-speaking seniors. What that translates into is discovering what some of the differences are about English-speaking seniors as compared with the majority-language seniors in Quebec.

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much, and thank you for the invitation. Seniors Action Quebec is an advocacy organization advocating on behalf of English-speaking seniors in Quebec. There are just over a million English speakers in Quebec, so about 13% of the Quebec population. Of that million, just under 160,000 are 65-plus, so it's a sizeable number of people who are English-speaking and 65-plus.