Not to belabour this point, but Mr. Kelly just twigged a couple of things that I wanted to pick up on and flesh out a bit more.
I often hear from seniors that they feel they have completed their part of the bargain in this country. They worked hard, followed the rules and paid their taxes; now their CPP doesn't go far enough to help them sustain their life. In fact, we know that there are more seniors at food banks, as well as becoming housing-displaced or outright homeless, than ever before in this country. Clearly, there is an understanding gap between people who have contributed and are contributing to the CPP and what that CPP is going to look like when it turns around and starts paying Canadians back.
The increased or enhanced provisions within the act, which we're trying to amend here today, might not fix that problem in terms of buying power, but they would at least give Canadians a bit more of a heads-up that this is what's coming—that this is what the dollar amount will actually be worth in terms of their buying power when they hit 65, 75, 85 or, if they're lucky, when they hit 95, versus what may be in their mind as the perception that they're going to be getting back from CPP after having paid into it their entire lives.
I do hear from Canadians, and it's a pretty disappointing result. They've worked very hard and contributed to their community and to society, and then they can't afford groceries at the end of the week.
I just heard a story about somebody from Harvest Manitoba. Her job at the Health Sciences Centre Winnipeg was to drive people to the food banks. When she retired, including her pensions, she still didn't have enough money to keep a roof over her head and pay for her groceries. She's now accessing the food bank herself, in retirement, after a career in the health care sector trying to connect people with the supports that food banks in Winnipeg offer. This is a tragic state of affairs as far as I'm concerned.
The point is that this individual maybe did everything they could to save everything they could, and nothing more could have been done. However, maybe they could have saved more if they had known that their CPP was only going to go a certain distance, a certain length. If that can be explained better with annual or regular reporting, as we're requiring of the finance minister with our amendment, I think that's a good thing. Canadians can then more accurately plan their finances with the information available to them, which will be more accessible and in a more consumable format. I think that's an important thing for Canadians to do. Certainly for this individual it may have benefited her in terms of her own financial planning and the situation she is now very tragically involved in.
Mr. Kelly raised an important point about the realistic funding and contribution decisions that this would outline, as well as the enabling of consistent comparisons over time, which I believe would also allow Canadians to have a better understanding of what the dollar figures will be worth and what their purchasing power will be when they come to be of a pensionable age.