I had a meeting in Sault Ste. Marie just this past week, and about 75 people showed up because they were concerned that they weren't receiving the benefits to which they were entitled. In fact, we found a couple in that bunch.
When you did the review I think there were over 300,000. We still have over 100,000 who are not getting their GIS, according to Stats Canada and the information we have at our disposal.
I'm particularly concerned about families who come into my office after the death of their parents and discover, in trying to tie up the estates, that they actually qualified for Canada Pension or OAS. They had never received it and lived in some pretty desperate poverty. In some instances, they had actually gone in to see if they qualified and were told they didn't.
Would that have anything to do with some of the inadequacies or shortcomings of the SIN system we have in place? Why aren't we able to track these people and identify more quickly whether they are or aren't qualified? Why do we have so many people out there who qualify for some things but are told they don't? At the end of the day we have families weeping over the conditions in which some of these folks had to live before they died--living in poverty because they didn't get what they had coming to them.