Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much for being here today.
I have a number of questions. I'd like to start with the chart that you've provided. I found it very interesting. If you look at the top of the chart, you'll see that a couple with a combined income of $22,000 doesn't benefit at all from income splitting, but if you go down to the bottom, the couple with the combined income of $112,000 do reasonably well, with a benefit of about $8,500.
This is of interest to me for a number of reasons, but primarily because, when I think about the senior years, I think about the importance of quality of life. That disparity in terms of income seems to me to undermine that quality of life for a significant sector. I wonder if you could comment on how we address that group that doesn't have any opportunity to benefit from the changes that are being made in terms of pension splitting.
And I ask you to comment in terms of the fact that, in this budget, despite the fact that there is income splitting, there is nothing to address some of the issues around seniors' needs and quality of life, such as pharmacare, such as affordable housing, affordable home care, available long-term care or palliative care, and recreational and training opportunities. There is nothing there. What do we say to those people who are at the bottom, who simply don't have the kind of income that would give them the quality of life that they've earned?