Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just want to make a couple of comments before I get started. I was here in November with the National Pensioners. I got a letter from the chairman, thanking me for coming, so I appreciate that. I have a handout, but we don't have it translated, so we'll give it to the clerk to be done afterwards.
I'll give a history of our association and what we're trying to do. We're a national association where membership is by clubs, chapters, or provincial bodies. We consider that we probably represent a million people, but we don't have a million-person membership list. It's by the association you belong to. For example, suppose a seniors club in Lindsay has a thousand members in it. If you're a member, then you're part of our federation.
We're cross-country. I myself work out of Ontario. The first vice-president and a past president are out of Newfoundland. The second vice-president, who is also the secretary of a federation of Nova Scotia seniors, is out of Nova Scotia. The third vice-president is also out of Newfoundland, and is also secretary of a Newfoundland 50-plus seniors' group. The treasurer is in Ontario, and the secretary is in Saskatchewan, and she's also president of the SSAI in Saskatchewan. The treasurer is the second vice of the USCO in Ontario. So we're all very integrated, and our main goal is looking after seniors.
We've been working with the SIPA, the Small Investor Protection Association, and they had hundreds of horror stories from before this. Our agenda was set before what happened on October 31. There was some misrepresentation and people have been losing money because their broker or whoever told them it was great, it was great this year, but then it was not great two years from then. Obviously, I didn't bring them, and you're not here to hear that.
We also are working with the FADOQ in Quebec. Our past president from a few years back is working with them. The FADOQ, as you know, has a 400,000-person membership in Quebec, with 15 or 20 vice-presidents, but theirs are individual memberships. Individuals pay a membership fee in FADOQ. They have big numbers. Obviously they're a big organization, they have resources, and they work with the government. We're working with them on some of the while-collar crime, as you may want to call it.
We are wishing for a regulator, because there isn't one. You have regulations if you buy a fridge and you have regulations if you buy a furnace or whatever, but nobody answers to anybody or any regulation when you're buying shares or income trusts or whatever. Seniors—and most of us think this way—are reluctant to speak out if they lose their money. It ends up being “their fault” even though they were given bad advice. You complain about your car that doesn't work and you get mad at the dealer and you complain about something else, but you don't tell your neighbour that you lost $50,000 because you made a bad investment or you think you made a bad investment. You invested with cooperation from a broker and maybe he advised you badly. There are no rules to combat that, so we need those.
We welcome the income splitting, plus a higher deduction for the age credit. The government, on income trusts and what was going on, needs a good tax base to supply the needs of all Canadians, but not just seniors.
Where I live in Ontario we have the highest density of seniors. We're an hour and a half out of Toronto, but we're also in cottage country. The cottage that you got 30 or 40 or 50 years ago is now your house. Obviously most cottages aren't cottages any more, but they're worth a fair amount of money. But we also have a lot of seniors who are on the edge and don't have a whole pile of money, and they're living in our area.
We have a good hospital there that is very busy, but there's a shortage of doctors, like everywhere else in Canada.
I just want to give one credit on the thing we're handing out. Fred Silk, chartered accountant, did it for us, and we have others.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.