I now wish I hadn't said that. I was referring to this poem. I'm not suggesting there's malnutrition.
There are a couple of examples of things you might think about. We know from surveys that there's very little income effect on accessing a physician, but there's a huge income effect in accessing a dentist, huge. The chances of accessing a dentist, if you're a low-income Canadian without employer health benefits, is exceedingly small, and you can see the effect when people reach age 20.
Prescription drugs. Yesterday's Globe and Mail had a horrible story about a child. If that child's parents had been employed by the provincial or federal governments, that drug would be covered, I'm sure. I don't know that for a certainty.
Health benefits. What are the things that we value, as credible people with good jobs that carry benefits? We value maternity benefits, we value drug plans, we value dental coverage--all of those health benefits that are subsidized by the treasury through the tax system. Those are generally not available to the working poor. Those are areas where you could take it over. If the employers aren't going to provide it, then do it.
I think we are heading for extraordinary inequality in the incomes of seniors, the disparity between the retirement income of people who had very nice pensions all their lives compared with the half of the population who retire with no pension plan and have average incomes of $15,000.