Thank you very much, Chair.
Secretary, I would like to thank you for coming today. I have a few questions.
One thing that really concerns me is that I recently had to assist seniors who had been living in their car over the winter. The reason is that they just couldn't afford the cost of living and, therefore, couldn't afford the rent or their food.
For seniors on fixed incomes, every cost increase, from groceries and rent to medical supplies, erodes their purchasing power. As we know, 58,255 widowed women are over 65 and living in poverty. Single seniors are 39% of Canadians over 65, yet single seniors do not benefit from income splitting. We know that's an issue. In 2021, the census showed that 305,000 seniors were living below poverty, with over 173,000 women affected. Seventy-one per cent of single seniors were living alone, earning under $50,000.
How are we supposed to respond to seniors listening today who are choosing whether to pay their rent, to buy medicine or to buy food when they're barely making their rent payments?