Thank you very much for the question, Ms. Roberts, and for coming to our conference back in November as well.
I'm sorry to hear about your constituent. Stories like that are all too common across the country. We hear them every day—as I'm sure you all do as well, from your constituents—and I'll say a few things about that.
There's a role for the state in this to increase her retirement income, which I know we can all agree is the intent of the bill, so the work on GIS to increase that amount is very good.
When it comes to earnings exemptions, there's some thought, really, that any sort of clawback of earnings is punishing people for working. You could argue, and I would argue quite strongly that CPP is our natural endowment as Canadians. We work hard. We pay into it. What we receive out of it is our entitlement as Canadians because we've all paid into it collectively to support ourselves, our families and our seniors as we age.
There is very good work to be done around addressing these earnings exemptions towards, probably, zero over time, so that seniors can work if they have to work and they're not punished for working, but ultimately these things take time. Even the conversation we're having today is illuminating the fact that far too many seniors are put in a position where they have to go back to work. It's one thing if they choose to go back to work, but if they have to go back to work, over time this should be addressed. Today this is, in my opinion and our opinion, a start to paving that way to not punishing, in this case, seniors for earning more income.
The last thing I'll say is that there's a broader role out there as well. That senior in your community would probably benefit from a more holistic local social safety net that's able to help her afford groceries a bit more, pay her property tax bill, pay her income tax every year and do all the other things. It's not just about income; it's also about the things that take part of that income over time. We can all do better in that regard.