Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would be pleased to use the time not used by my colleague.
I also want to thank our friends who are here today. I call them our friends because they are people who are very concerned about the situation of seniors, in particular, and I know that they are doing a lot to help them.
Thank you for being here as witnesses.
My colleague, Mr. Silva, raised a question regarding public servants. Mr. Dussault’s intervention makes me want to ask for an interpretation of Bill C-36. It was my understanding—maybe the officials can confirm it for us—that Bill C-36 had addressed this problem, i.e. in the case of an administrative error, but not fraud, no interest has to be paid. However, we should check that this is indeed the case. If not, maybe an amendment should be brought to address the issue. However, I thought I had read that in Bill C-36. It will be up to us, along with the officials, to determine what is what.
I will start by addressing a few comments to the AQDR, the Association québécoise de défense des droits des personnes retraitées et préretraitées, and to Mr. Salembier, but perhaps there are others who would also like to respond.
I was somewhat surprised by the issue of retroactivity. None of you mentioned that benefits should be retroactive more than for the eleven-month period provided for in the bill. In fact, many seniors were entitled to the Guaranteed Income Supplement and didn’t get it for the reasons raised by my colleague, Mr. Silva. They didn’t know they were entitled, or given their civil status, they weren’t in a position to know, whether it was for reasons of language, disability, illiteracy, etc.
So why didn’t you bring it up? We were, in fact, considering whether we should go for a period longer than eleven months, because of how unfair the situation was for people who were entitled to the benefits.
I would like to hear what you have to say.