This is a major problem that needs to be addressed. We could increase all retirement income, particularly for women, by improving public plans. Women have less access to private plans, except if they have worked in the public sector, because generally speaking, there are fewer and fewer private pension plans.
I would therefore be in favour of an improvement along these lines, and even of doubling the QPP and the CPP. I would also be in favour of recognizing the work done by women in raising children, either through Old Age Security, the Quebec Pension Plan or the Canada Pension Plan.
I addition, I would like to disagree with what Mr. Dussault said. I did not say that I was in favour of the Guaranteed Income Supplement, or with the Seniors' Benefit that the Mulroney government had put forward, precisely because that would have meant the tax rate of very low-income families would be 80%. All the people who had invested in RRSPs would have lost this money once they retired. In fact, this is why the program was abandoned.
There must be investment in universal programs, because women can rely on them. The Guaranteed Income Supplement and income-dependent programs are such that as soon as a person's income increases, he or she is no longer entitled to them, and it becomes very difficult. It becomes a poverty cap: people have to be here or there, but if they are somewhere in between, there is always a downward levelling.
The only way to help retired women under the circumstances is to have different types of recognition of the work they do with children, and, increasingly, with their aging parents. There are still many women who leave the labour market or reduce their hours of work in order to look after their aging parents.