Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am going to go back to an intervention by Mr. Shillington, which in my mind is very important. We are looking forward to adopting Bill C-36 because it will make things better. We are going to make amendments to it and vote for it. Mr. Shillington pointed out that we were delighted with initiatives that should, of course, have been taken much sooner. We are facilitating access to the Guaranteed Income Supplement, to the forms, etc.
The fact that we have to set government machinery in motion to correct a situation that should have been resolved is rather sad. It bothers and saddens me. Another thing that saddens me it the fact that my colleague, Ms. Yelich—and I am not blaming you for this, Ms. Yelich—gave what was an inappropriate example in my opinion.
People who absolutely do not want to provide basic information as to whether they are alive or not would not want to be receiving Old Age Security benefits either. In fact, to get the benefits, they have to provide exactly the same information as is required for the Guaranteed Income Supplement. In the latter case, the only difference is that they also have to indicate whether their level of income makes them eligible.
If people have income they do not want to reveal, it’s their choice. If this is the case, they won’t be applying for Guaranteed Income Supplement benefits. They’ll tell department officials not to pay out the supplement because their income is sufficient. They don’t have to reveal that they are hiding income. Other people are responsible for checking into these things. So with all due respect, I don’t think we can use this example to penalize a whole group of people.
A certain number of people are entitled to some income under Canadian legislation. The question is: do we allow them to access it or not? We know that in 2002, 340,000 people were deprived of benefits to which they were entitled. Today, there are still about 100,000 people in this situation in Canada. That is a very serious. I don’t think we can invoke the Access to Information Act in this case. Even the privacy commissioner told us that it didn’t apply. Otherwise, it would apply to all the other benefits related to income security, including employment insurance. There is a minimum amount of information that has to be submitted to the government. Given the discussions that will be taking place with respect to the recommendations and amendments to be made regarding Bill C-36, I think this is an important point.
I will thank you now because I won’t have the opportunity to do it later. I would appreciate your comments on what I just said.