Thank you.
I'd like to congratulate all three of you on the work you're doing. I think many of us in our society tend to forget some of these issues until we're confronted with them.
My focus has been on immigrants, and not just on immigrants but on seniors who are brought to this country. Many of them are being brought here as part of family reunification, and as you know, income requirements aren't all that high in order to bring your parents over. We now have a two-tier system in this country, meaning that if you come from a European country with which we have signed pension agreements, then you get your pension--actually a quarter of the pension, the old age security. We have a lot of immigrants coming here from third world countries. Their families are struggling, and the government--not just this current one, but governments in the past--has decided that these people are not eligible for pensions, and that they have to be here for 10 years.
So that's one of my pushes right now. I don't know if it's going to get royal acceptance or not, but it's a very serious issue.
The other very serious issue we have is with immigrant women who have come here primarily as domestics. We know that once they're no longer needed to take care of children in these homes, they go out into the workforce, and they generally have to take low-paying jobs, with no union protection and no labour protection, in the service industry. It's hard, heavy work, and as you get into your fifties you begin to get a little bit arthritic, and you're not quite as strong as you were to be able to care for others. You have $1,103 to live on, and there are many women living in these circumstances.
What I'm concerned about is the lack of affordable housing. I want you to address that issue. Maybe you have some numbers on the number of women--I don't know where they live--who are maybe tossed from one family to the next.
The other issue is income splitting. It may help lower-income families in which there are two people, but how can we come up with a solution to take women who have no income to split and make it more equitable for them?