When you receive this report, you will have been two years in your mandate, so I'm curious about the following . Why do you feel it has taken so long for this priority to come to the forefront? Is there a national seniors strategy already in the works? Is that something that your office is already working on? What steps will be taken when this report is given to you? Do you have any sense of a timeline?
I think one of the things that I've heard loud and clear—not only in my riding, but as seniors critic for the NDP across Canada—is that seniors can't wait. They have been waiting a long time. They have needed some of these solutions. You know, they appreciate some of the steps, but the reality is that poverty is overwhelming. Housing for seniors is overwhelming.
I think, most importantly, it's all the gaps. Again and again when I did the 11 town halls in my riding, what I heard from seniors was, “We don't care what level of government deals with this. We want all levels of government working together so that these big holes aren't there for us to fall through.” As we see an aging and increasingly vulnerable population, what is the timeline for real action? Canadians appreciate that we have to do our work, but they want to see action. They don't want to see another report.