Bill C-36 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Pension Plan and the Old Age Security Act

This enactment amends the Canada Pension Plan to implement the existing full funding provision for new benefits and benefit enhancements. It also provides for their calculation, the requirements for public reporting of those costs and the integration of those costs into the process for setting the contribution rate.
It changes the contributory requirement for disability benefits under the Canada Pension Plan for contributors with 25 or more years of contributions to the Canada Pension Plan, to require contributions in only three of the last six years in the contributory period. Other contributors will continue to have to meet the existing requirement of contributions in four of the last six years in their contributory period.
It also makes changes to the Canada Pension Plan of an administrative nature to modernize service delivery. It authorizes the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting the payment of interest on amounts owing to Her Majesty under Part II of the Act. It also addresses anomalies in the Act, amends the penalty provisions and clarifies certain language used in the Act.
In addition, this enactment amends the Old Age Security Act to authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting the payment of interest on amounts owing to Her Majesty under the Act. The enactment also eliminates the ability of estates or successions to apply for income-tested benefits and ensures that sponsored immigrants are treated the same for the purpose of determining entitlements to income-tested benefits. It also corrects anomalies in the Act, amends the penalty provisions, modernizes and simplifies the application and delivery of the Old Age Security program and clarifies certain language used in the Act.

Canada Pension Plan

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I started to articulate earlier about some of the scenarios that had been put before us today on some of the conditions in which seniors live. Many of these conditions are the result of poor management on the part of provincial governments.

I just came off a three week tour of my riding of Blackstrap. I went through senior citizens homes in rural Saskatchewan. Hospitals are being closed. We are not being heard in rural Saskatchewan. Our province seems to be ignoring this. This is why I hope we can pass legislation like this to at least do what we can. The federal government can only do so much for these seniors. Some of the conditions seniors in Saskatchewan are living in today are the result of very high medical costs in the province. Some drugs are not covered. Some of our hospitals and senior residences are closing. Some people are being taken out of their communities.

One of the official opposition members said yesterday that sometimes seniors needed support. It is not all about money. Some of it means good community support. I would like to take every member of the New Democratic Party to Saskatchewan for a tour to see how some people live under the NDP government there. I am trying to put some stories together to show that it has ignored its seniors and its people.

The federal government is listening and we are--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

I am sorry to interrupt the member, but we have one more question we want to fit in.

The hon. member for Chambly--Borduas.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I invite the member and parliamentary secretary to actually answer the question from the member for Alfred-Pellan.

I am disconcerted to see that when she is asked why the Conservative government refuses to pay the guaranteed income supplement to seniors—to which they are entitled retroactively—she answers that we have to be careful with public funds. This is quite disconcerting.

The primary function of the guaranteed income supplement is in fact to be careful with the finances of our most disadvantaged citizens in order to help them. That is something she is not taking into consideration.

This was a right and it is still a right. This right should be retroactive because seniors have been deprived of it. Owing to their isolated situation, they have remained unaware of this right.

I would like the parliament secretary to answer the question properly. If she does not do so, I invite her to listen again to what she said, because it does not make any sense.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure how far back they want to go, but we do offer retroactivity. This has been done in a prudent manner and with the good guidance of the finance minister. Our department is doing what is prudent with retroactivity. The program is trying to duplicate what is done in other provinces. That is what retroactivity does. It is in the best interests of those who make the decisions on retroactivity.

When the member talked about retroactivity, I understood him to say that it would go back a long time. I do not think that would be possible. How far back would one want to start retroactive payments? We do that already. We are trying to look forward. We want to ensure this does not happen again. The positive parts of the bill will make it so this never happens again.

I invite the member to help us ensure it does not happen again by finding a way to reach those people who are not registered through the income tax system. If the member could help with some solutions--

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

Order. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there are days when what we do in this House is agreeable and other days when it is less so. Today, I believe we are having a positive and constructive debate on this legislative measure. Several years ago, I saw the Bloc Québécois member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain, Marcel Gagnon, take the offensive against a federal government that was very insensitive in dealing with this question of the guaranteed income supplement.

Let us remember that it was discovered that 272,000 people in Canada, including about 68,000 in Quebec, were not receiving the guaranteed income supplement, not because they were not eligible for it, or because they had been denied it, but because they had not been given the means to apply for it. This was the result of the somewhat obsessive war on the deficit.

The rules for employment insurance were tightened considerably, such as an increase in the number of weeks to qualify for benefits, a reduction in the number of benefit weeks to which people are entitled, and a reduction in the percentage of benefits, and this was done to take money out of the pockets of the worst off in order to pay down the federal deficit. The federal government also used the guaranteed income supplement for the same purpose.

This whole scandal was brought out into the light of day and Mr. Gagnon, along with all the Bloc members, set out on a tour of Quebec. We organized meetings in senior citizens clubs and with the Association québécoise de défense des retraités. We also held meetings with younger people who realized that their parents did not have access to this program because they did not have the information they needed. It was then that we realized just how terrible the situation had become. It took some time for the federal government to react.

In contrast, there are some issues on which the government acts much more quickly. When we owe money on our income tax, for example, the government reaches as far back as five years to recover the money that is due. However, when the federal government owes money to older people for the guaranteed income supplement, the maximum retroactivity is 11 months.

Once again today, in the debate on this bill, which will improve the situation on a number of counts, full retroactivity is still being denied, not to people who are 30, 35, 40 or 50 years old but to people who have contributed to our society throughout their whole lives, people who often are in very difficult personal situations.

Speaking about people who found themselves in this situation—and I recall meeting some—they were, for example, women who had never worked outside the home and whose husbands assumed responsibility for all financial matters, women whose husbands brought home the pay cheque and who were left with nothing when their husbands died. For many years, these women were not entitled to the guaranteed income supplement, although they would have been if we had only instituted an automatic assessment of their rights a few years ago. Often they have lived three, four, five or eight years in unacceptable poverty. If we had only taken the attitude that the guaranteed income supplement should be paid to anyone who needs it, if our policy had been based on that philosophy, we would not be here today discussing this bill. At least we can say now as parliamentarians that, even though it is many years late in coming because of the federal government’s slowness to institute changes, we are finally going to correct part of the problem. The automatic calculation feature will really help to correct the situation and ensure that people receive the guaranteed income supplement in due course.

What is the guaranteed income supplement for the people who are listening to us and do not know? There is an old age security program in Canada to provide an income to people who have reached 65 years of age. In addition, the guaranteed income supplement was developed for people who have no income other than this federal government income because we know very well that the basic amount is not enough for today’s cost of living. Even with the guaranteed income supplement, I can assure the House that people who receive the maximum are not wasting it. Fortunately, our seniors are accustomed to economizing and they manage ultimately to reach a satisfactory standard of living. There has been an improvement in the income of older people in comparison with 60 years ago. There has been an increase and that is very good because these people really deserve it.

However, a few corrections are in order. I would like to give you an example of something that does not appear in the bill. I realized that there was a problem, a fundamental flaw, in the indexing formula for old age security. It is calculated on the basis of a basket of goods and services purchased by the average Canadian consumer. Seniors have expenses that most people do not. They have to buy special equipment for their homes. For example, they may need an additional handrail in the bathtub.

There are other kinds of expenses, such as the cost of medication and alterations to the home. Many of these expenses far exceed the nominal inflation we see happening today. If old age security is indexed at 2%, that means people will systematically be losing money. Yet they adapt. It can be very frustrating to receive a cheque for $.55 or $1.05 more every three or six months while at the same time, the extra bills come in for medication, unexpected health issues or a death in the family. All such situations must be taken into account, and I would like the federal government to study this matter.

Instead of determining the inflation rate based on a conventional basket of goods and services, the government should use a special basket for seniors. This would ensure indexing that corresponds to the increase in their cost of living, not that of average Canadians. This bill aims to improve a number of things in this regard. It is pretty good, but it should go further. One good thing about the bill is that it mentions ongoing renewal, clarity of legislation and waiving the requirement for a renewal application for the guaranteed income supplement and allowance benefits once an initial application has been made.

In contrast to many government programs, people who may be 75, 78, 80 or 85 have to reapply each year. We will change that. It makes no sense that it has taken five years to reach this point, but the bill before us will at least take care of that. The bill also contains provisions to ensure that the legislation is clearer and more consistent and to reflect its true intent. This means that this was not done in the past. As my colleague said earlier, the true intent of the legislation is to provide income for people who have no other source of income and who absolutely need that money to live. The legislation is not intended to save the government money; it is not intended to pay people as little as possible; it is intended to give people what they are entitled to. We hope that the legislation will reflect this intent. There is also a need to simplify the reporting of income for couples and seniors.

For example, for seniors who apply for income-tested benefits and who have suffered a loss of income due to the termination or reduction of employment or pension income, this change would facilitate the application process by requiring that seniors report estimated pension and employment income only. This means that there will be a sort of safety net when unforeseen circumstances arise, so that we can make adjustments during the course of the year. Often, in practice, seniors are faced with a sudden expense. They withdraw money from an RRSP to pay it, and this amount is added to their income for the previous year, which reduces the amount they receive in the current year. We regularly see such cases in our riding offices, and we need to find ways to make the program more flexible, so that people are not penalized by such situations.

Spouses will no longer be required to provide marital and income information that has already been provided by their spouse or common-law partner. In practice, there will be one less obstacle. However, this transmittal of personal information must be carried out properly. With past practices, caution was required to ensure appropriate processing. What happened with the guaranteed income supplement also occurred with American pensions. As I was explaining earlier, it was during the same period where as much money as possible had to be collected and as little as possible was to be disbursed.

That was the 1994-95 period, under the former Liberal government. At that time, it was decided that an additional tax would be applied to American pensions. In the end, citizens in the same situation were penalized.

This situation has yet to be corrected. I hope that the federal government will examine this issue in the coming weeks and months so that justice may also be served for these individuals.

The Bloc Québécois believes that Bill C-36 will make it easier for disadvantaged seniors to access the guaranteed income program by providing for automatic renewal of guaranteed income benefits to couples on the basis of a single tax return. This is an interesting aspect of this bill. It is one of the reasons why the Bloc Québécois will support this bill.

The bill will allow seniors who have had a sudden drop in their employment income or their retirement income during a fiscal year to apply for the guaranteed income supplement based on an approximate statement of their employment and pension incomes. As I was saying earlier, this is another positive point. In a way it provides a credit or evaluation opportunity during a year when a senior's financial situation suddenly deteriorates. The situation can be adjusted immediately rather than waiting until the following year. What people buy with their old age security or guaranteed income supplement cheques is real. They are not stashing it away. This money is for covering daily expenses.

It can be shocking to go into homes or residences where seniors live in Quebec and Canada to see how people have to come up with small miracles to make ends meet with the money they receive. If there is a sudden change in their income or an unexpected expense in the family, for the couple or the person living alone, that is a major problem. The bill provides another positive aspect in that regard.

The bill also clarifies some sections of the Old Age Security Act in order to correct inconsistencies. This is also important. It also makes changes to the Canada pension plan. This does not affect Quebec or its constitutional responsibilities in any way. We are being vigilant and want to ensure that Quebec's jurisdictions are protected.

Generally speaking this is a bill that will improve the situation. However, there are a certain number of items we would like to go over in committee, unless the government comes back with another bill. The first item is the way this bill broadens the restrictions on immigrants who are new Canadian citizens. We will have to look at the impact of such a measure because the Bloc Québécois cannot agree to having different classes of Canadian citizens, regardless of their journey to get here.

In this case, we are talking about sponsored immigrants, that is those who were able to come here with the help of a sponsor. Under the bill before us, there could be situations where the income provided by the sponsor could be taken into account in the calculations with regard to the guaranteed income supplement while, technically, I think the person should simply be deemed entitled to the GIS. People who act as sponsors are not all millionaires.

Immigration here often means that a factory worker brings his father or his mother to this country. The person settles here and meets the eligibility requirements with regard to the number of years for example. At some point, if the money provided by the sponsor has to be taken into account in calculating the guaranteed income supplement, it penalizes the sponsor. In some way, the senior's personal situation is actually hurting his or her family's situation. I think this issue could be addressed in committee.

There is another aspect that was raised several times by my colleagues and that really needs to be addressed by the government. It is the last key element needed to make the system totally fair, and I am talking about retroactivity. Currently, retroactivity is limited to 11 months. Why 11 months for the guaranteed income supplement and five years for taxes owed to the government? This double standard is unacceptable.

The parliamentary secretary mentioned earlier that sound management of public funds will be a factor. That is the same argument that was used by the Liberals when they did not want to make changes to the GIS.

They argued that doing the automatic calculation every year would involve significant costs and that they did not know what they would amount to, and that we had to be careful.

As a result of pressure, the representations made by the political parties and the initiative of the Bloc Québécois, that argument was refuted with regard to automatic calculation. The question of retroactivity should now be dealt with in the same way. Let us be honest: the only reason why the government is refusing to do this is that it will have to pay out large amounts of money to make up for the negligence of the system.

An injustice or inequity must not be tolerated simply because a significant expense will be incurred. If there are errors that result directly from automatic calculation and a person is entitled to retroactive payment for a number of years, it would be entirely reasonable for retroactive payment to reflect a five-year period or the maximum period. If the right thing is done properly and at the right time, instead of being 11 months it may be 14 months, 18 months or two years. It may not be as drastic as that in all situations. There is a way of developing a system that is tight enough that the overall cost will not be too high at the end of the road.

What we have today is the result of the rather disastrous management of the past.

At present, in terms of retroactivity, there is certainly a larger amount owing. I think it is on the order of $3 billion for all of Canada. However, if the system is managed properly and we go ahead with a tight system, that amount will decline and it will be much lower in the years to come. This is therefore an important factor.

The Bloc Québécois will take the opportunity offered by debate on this bill to continue its battle and to tell seniors that they should be entitled to this retroactive payment. Yes, we are going to continue working to ensure that everyone who is entitled to the guaranteed income supplement is able to receive it.

This system was developed in Canada to enable these people to receive a certain amount of money, but it also helps to keep the economy going. We have to remember the time when neither the old age pension nor the guaranteed income supplement existed. People did not live nearly as long. Some people's lives involved much greater hardship than they do today. Part of that situation has been remedied. Now, we must continue to improve the system. That includes retroactivity and appropriate indexation for seniors.

We must examine more thoroughly the poverty issue of women living alone, for example, or when one of the spouses dies. When the husband dies and the wife remains alone, the surviving spouse must suddenly face major additional expenses.

Is the current survivor's benefits program adequate? Could an additional effort be made? We must examine these conditions as a whole. The bill we are debating today will not resolve all these issues. However, the committee must feel very comfortable about broadening these recommendations to make suggestions along these lines.

Concerning the expansion of the third party group to which the contributor's personal information could be provided, we must ensure that the testimony of the Privacy Commissioner is heard.

The Privacy Commissioner will have to examine the best way to ensure that personal information can be provided to various government stakeholders. Does this respect the protection of personal information? Does the individual give his or her authorization? To what does he or she give it? How will it be used? We will have to ensure that no action exceeds the limits.

The provision of personal information collected in the guaranteed income supplement reports and the direct link with the taxation agency must not be made to the detriment of the individual, and the latter must be informed of the type of exchange. We will then be able to guarantee that statistics will not be used improperly. The changes to regulations must not limit access to the guaranteed income supplement. The Bloc will keep a close watch on this.

Automatic assessment is very nice, but some sort of regulation before approval should not make qualification more complicated. We will follow this closely, because our seniors deserve that respect. There must be a spirit and a policy.

I will conclude by saying that this has been a long-fought battle. Marcel Gagnon, a former member of the Bloc Québécois, did extraordinary work on this issue. Today, he must be pleased that part of the result has been achieved, but he expects an equal measure of fairness on the retroactive side. Thank you.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this bill is of special interest to residents in my riding, especially the disability eligibility provisions.

This past month a constituent of mine came to my office and told me a very sad story. He contributed for some 25 years to the Canada pension plan. He was hurt on the job and went on worker's compensation for two years. Of course those two years do not qualify under the total years worked under Canada pension plan. He then struggled to go back to work for three years but was then diagnosed with inoperable terminal cancer. He does not qualify for disability benefits. Now in his waning years he does not have the income that he needs to at least make his life reasonably comfortable. The fact is that this is not an uncommon experience across Canada and many individuals are in the same position.

Since the member and his party seem to support this legislation, is his party also prepared to expedite the passage of the legislation through committee stage, third reading and then through the Senate?

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in my speech, and as my colleagues pointed out earlier, the Bloc Québécois is in favour of this bill. We intend to support it. There will be no filibustering tactics to prevent this bill from being adopted. However, I would personally like the committee to hear witnesses on the various issues that I raised, including making retroactive payments to those who should have been receiving guaranteed income supplement benefits over the past two or three years.

My point is the same as the one made by my colleague with his example. If someone who has been making sacrifices for two or three years because his or her income was low—and if that person qualified for the guaranteed income supplement, it is because his or her income was indeed quite low—suddenly finds out that he or she should have been getting the supplement, it seems to me that we should be able to come up with a solution to deal with this situation. The committee could hear witnesses on this issue, and also people with disabilities or health problems. We should ensure consistency among all the government policies, the Canada pension plan or the Quebec pension plan—in the case of Quebec—and the superannuation system. Just because these programs are interrelated does not mean that if we give benefits to one group, we should deprive others from benefits that they are already getting and that they also need.

The Bloc Québécois has taken this issue seriously for many years and has fought very hard for it. One of my best moments as a member of Parliament was to take the initiative of organizing a tour and ask if public servants would come with me and meet people who did not know what the guaranteed income supplement was, even though they should have been getting it. Dozens of Bloc Québécois members did likewise. This enabled us to make very good contact with people who have dedicated their lives to their families, to our society. Whenever we would meet 50 or 60 of these people, there would be two or three or four in that situation. Sometimes, someone aged 33 or 35 would be present at the meeting and would tell us that he or she was going to check things out, because his or her parents were not getting the guaranteed income supplement when they should be receiving it. This kind of positive action has produced interesting results. Today, it is reflected in part in the bill. Consequently, we will support this legislation, but we will expect the government to continue to work to ensure that the program becomes fair in every respect. This will be achieved by ensuring full retroactivity.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

First I want to congratulate my colleague from Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup on his speech in which he aptly outlined all the problems related to income benefits for seniors.

Among all the roles he has played in the House of Commons for the Bloc Québécois, my colleague was at some point responsible for human resources and social development. I know he was very interested in having this injustice corrected for seniors who were entitled to those payments and was very active in that regard.

Earlier, the parliamentary secretary mentioned in her response the complexity of making those retroactive payments as a reason for refusing to make the payments. My colleague mentioned the fact that, in 2001, there were 272,000 people in Canada who had not received those retroactive payments, including 68,000 in Quebec. Having those numbers means that it was possible to identify those people who did not receive the retroactive payments. Therefore, identification is not the problem.

I know my colleague has also examined the whole issue of recovering money owed. For example, when someone has committed a fraud in the past or has inadvertently withheld money from the government, these sums are recovered retroactively and it is often done in entire communities.

Does my colleague believe that it is indeed a problem or are there ways for the government to ensure justice for these people?

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

Indeed, there remains one door to open. As for arguments such as those of the parliamentary secretary, let us hear no more of them. The government has a responsibility to ensure that its programs are administered fairly.

In fact, 272,000 people were identified. They were not receiving the guaranteed income supplement although they were entitled to it. The same applies to probably some 68,000 people in Quebec. Some of those people were located and a certain number received retroactive payments of up to 11 months when that was possible. However, there are cases where people were owed sums of money covering a period of two, three, four or five years. Had those amounts been paid—it is sad to say—some seniors would have been able to live out their lives with dignity. On that issue, there is no administrative argument for denying that right. We must find ways to make it happen.

If a decision was made to reach agreement in good faith with these people just as the Canada Revenue Agency is prepared to accept a compromise to some degree when someone owes money to it; if the federal government adopted a similar attitude to deal with retroactive claims that would be significant progress.

Let us accept as a starting principle that these people are entitled to retroactive payments and let us provide a retroactive period that is much greater than 11 months. If that happened, seniors in Quebec and all of Canada could consider that they are being treated fairly. Until then, we must continue to ensure that every person who is entitled to the guaranteed income supplement can receive it. We must ensure that this bill deals fairly with the issue of permanent residents. In addition, we must ensure that the next budget contains a statement about retroactivity of the guaranteed income supplement. There is no reason not to do so. The minister has one or two months to think about it.

We could then feel that as parliamentarians we had done our work. It is important to create wealth in a society; but we will be judged on the way that wealth is shared. At present, that wealth is not being distributed fairly. It is being done to the detriment of the most unfortunate members of our society. We have a particular social responsibility on this side and we expect the government to move on this matter.

In any event, on the Bloc Québécois side we have begun the battle. We will continue to fight and we will not let up until the people have obtained justice in terms of the retroactive payments that are owed to them by the federal government.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak on this issue today. It stems from a government bill, namely Bill C-36, to amend the Canada Pension Plan and the Old Age Security Act.

We are pleased with this initiative, but only to some extent. As previous speakers have mentioned, this is an initiative to make access to the guaranteed income supplement simpler and more practical by streamlining the process. This is something we have been calling for for many years, but have been systematically turned down by both the previous government and, for the past year, this government.

Because it deals with the old age security program, this bill also affects the benefits paid to pensioners, and particularly the guaranteed income supplement.

A problem arose, which my colleagues have raised, where low income seniors had to meet two criteria: age—they had to be 65 years old—and the number of years of residence in the country. These were the two criteria for applying, provided, of course, they had limited income. In this respect, however, regulations were made, which restricted and, in many cases, prevented access to the supplement.

My hon. colleague pointed this out earlier. In 2001, there were 272,000 people in Canada who were denied access for objective reasons that I will get into later. In Quebec, 68,000 individuals were affected. Our colleague Marcel Gagnon, who was the member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain at the time, fought tirelessly to have more of them receive the supplement, providing them with information about their rights and helping them, naturally, with the appropriate procedures.

The objective reasons I referred to were of the following nature. People were told they had to reapply each year. Many were not even aware that they were eligible for this supplement and, thus, did not apply for it the first year. Others did not know about the requirement to reapply annually.

Which of these people were the most vulnerable? It was those in poor physical health. Often it was also a matter of mental health. And there were actual physical limitations. Among those identified are people who have never worked or who have not filed income tax returns because they did not have any income or so little income that they did not think they needed to file a return. Aboriginals have been particularly affected, as have residents of remote communities, semi-literate people, those who do not read either of Canada’s official languages, persons with disabilities, people suffering from disease and homeless people.

We see that there is a range of people who are, I would say, disabled concerning their obligations to obtain one of their rights. A further complication was added to prevent them from obtaining this right. Over the years, especially since 2001, a major offensive has been led against the previous government for it to correct the situation and, for the past year, against the current government.

So how does that translate into money?

It was between 1993 and 2001 that people began to become aware of the situation—and it continues now, but less significantly. Seniors have been deprived of $3.1 billion. These people are among the most disadvantaged in our society.

What surprises me is that this does not seem to have touched the members of the previous government very much, because they took all those years to make an effort to correct the situation. In the present government we can observe some sensitivity to correcting the situation for people applying now, but no sensitivity for the people who have been deprived of this right. The situation is serious.

I do not want to be too hard on the present government, but when it was in opposition, some of its members were outraged by this situation, just like us. What happens when these people begin governing the country? How do people end up changing their attitude to such an extent? Why, when people are in power and can correct such a large injustice, do they not do so?

The two main political parties in Canada, who have until now taken turns in government, seem to have quite a particular propensity for attacking seniors.

We must also look at the problem as a whole. One of the recurring problems is the lack of will to support older workers who are forced out of the labour force because of massive layoffs.

There was the POWA, the Program for Older Worker Adjustment, but it was abolished in 1997. POWA helped workers aged 55 and over who lost their jobs and were unable to find new jobs for various reasons, the first of which being the unwillingness of employers to show generosity in hiring older workers first. That means that these people cannot find work because of their age. Some of them worked in the same trade for 20, 30 or 40 years and it is not easy for them to learn a new one. Furthermore, an average of 20% of the people laid off these days are 55 and older.

Since 1997, the year the Liberals abolished the POWA, we have been fighting to get an income support program for older workers.

The present situation contributes to the impoverishment of seniors who retired because they reached retirement age or because they were laid off. And here, I am referring to some massive layoffs.

Last week or the week before, the government announced the creation of an expert panel to study the situation. In fact, the government made that commitment last year, during the budget debate.

It was even part of last year's budget amendments. Ten or eleven months ago, the government made the commitment to proceed very quickly with this study and was supposed to report to the House when Parliament resumed after the summer recess.

Despite the fact that, whenever we asked questions about this during the last year, the current minister's predecessor told us every time that the study was underway, that progress was being made and that we would soon see results, we learned a week and a half ago that nothing had been done and that the government was setting up a committee now to do this study. Obviously the House of Commons was not told the truth, and that is a polite way of putting it. We were told something that was not the truth because it was false to say that the study was underway when it has not even started yet.

The second problem with that committee is that workers are not represented. It is made up of representatives of organizations that do not necessarily have that expertise. Surprisingly, the human resources and social development committee toured the country last fall to examine the issue of employability in Canada. One of the issues dealt with at that time was precisely the employability of seniors. How is it that we are being told today that this committee will do exactly the same work without even waiting for the results of the work currently done by our committee, which should be released before we adjourn in the spring?

It is rather amazing to see the extent to which the government will resort to delaying tactics not to honour its obligations to seniors who lose their jobs in massive layoffs. It systematically refuses to provide income support to those people, which tends to confirm what I was saying earlier about this government's tendency to target seniors.

Back to the guaranteed income supplement. It is time for the government to deliver. The parliamentary secretary said that we have to manage public funds carefully. Then she said that it will be very difficult to reimburse the money owed to these people because they are so hard to find. Her statements do not hold water.

The first demonstrates not only a lack of sensitivity but also a lack of empathy toward the poorest people in our society because everyone knows that whatever she says about keeping public funds under lock and key, we have a government that has generated budget surpluses for the past 12 years. On September 25, the Government of Canada announced a $13 billion surplus for the past fiscal year, yet it has responsibilities to seniors who often do not have enough income to pay for basic necessities, such as food, housing, clothing and a reasonable standard of living.

This morning, our colleague from Repentigny shared with us a very moving account of his previous job experience helping these people. He told us about the suffering and the isolation they are forced to endure. This isolation is caused in large part by their low income, which makes it impossible for them to contribute to society in any way.

The parliamentary secretary also said that it is hard to find these people. But if we know how many of them there are, we must know where they are. When it was a matter of finding a way to bring money into government coffers, they had plenty of ideas, plenty of ways to do it. For example, when it came time to bring in the GST and the QST and other provincial sales taxes, they found ways. In Quebec, a harmonized sales tax was implemented. Quebec passes on the Canadian government's share: 6%. Why have we not done something similar for seniors?

Many of these seniors are forced to ask the province of Quebec for help, either through the Quebec pension plan or social assistance. Why is there no agreement? Why have we not considered that the Canadian government could correctly identify these people by their income and that Quebec also had records that could be used to conduct the appropriate verifications to ensure that the guaranteed income supplement is given to those who qualify? Why has this not been done? The answer seems just as clear to me today as in the past. There is a lack of political will, which stems from the ideology of the two political parties, one after the other, an ideology based on supporting the wealthy people of our society and the people who contribute to society by providing jobs.

We know that a minister who temporarily became Prime Minister was able to take advantage of retroactivity for his business beyond the 11 months allowed for seniors. There was no skimping on the number of years and this was done for other businesses, too. When it comes to making exceptions for corporate taxes, there always seems to be a way. The answers we are given do not pass muster and are completely unacceptable in the current context, considering the injustice committed against our seniors.

In closing, I would like to point out that I limited myself to this aspect because my colleagues discussed possible amendments to allow our eligible seniors to access the guaranteed income supplement program. I deliberately discussed retroactivity in particular because I believe that if we do not include a provision in this bill to allow for retroactivity, we would simply be maintaining the same injustice, which is entirely unacceptable.

We, the Bloc Québécois, want no part of that. We encourage our colleagues of the other parties to come to their senses, to embrace justice, to embrace their sensitivity, and finally grant our seniors the right to receive their guaranteed income supplement benefits, which they should have been receiving since 1993. Thank you.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

On division.