Thank you, Chair.
Good afternoon to my colleagues and good afternoon to our witnesses.
My questions will be for Ms. Hall.
Ms. Hall, thank you so much for the work you've done in my home province of New Brunswick on behalf of seniors. It's very much noted and appreciated.
I think it's important, before I ask you some questions, for me to briefly talk about what our government has done on behalf of seniors. Certainly, in going door to door in the past three elections now, we have heard from seniors about their needs. Our government has stepped up, whether it's the increase of 10% for the GIS that financially helped almost 900,000 seniors.... We enhanced the New Horizons for Seniors program by offering a lot of different programs to different non-profits, if you will, around New Brunswick, and across Canada.
Moving forward, we now are going to increase the OAS by 10% for seniors who are over 74 years of age. We issued a one-time payment of $500 in August to OAS pensioners. We rolled back the age of eligibility from 67 to 65, and we're committed as a government to increasing the GIS by $500 for single seniors and $750 for couples. Last but not least, one that's certainly very meaningful to me and to my mom was the increase in the exemption that allowed seniors to earn up to $5,000 with no reduction of benefits, and then a partial exemption for the next $10,000. Those things are extremely relevant to helping seniors.
With respect to long-term care, Ms. Hall, you touched on it in your answer to Ms. Kusie, but I wanted to [Technical difficulty—Editor]. I mean, look, we all recognize as the federal government that jurisdiction is a major issue when it comes to the federal government's involvement in health care matters.
I know you hear that often. How do you think the federal government can help provinces and territories [Technical difficulty—Editor] infection prevention in long-term care facilities and with staffing shortages in the labour market?
Thank you.