Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to elaborate on that. I do not have the details of it in front of me, as the hon. member mentioned. However, the concept simply is that we have to start looking beyond the salary of the individual person.
I mentioned the idea of the government setting a threshold in the reduction of old age credits at $26,000 which, as I said, is not a very high income for an individual. However, if we start combining incomes and the family income is higher that is when we should start looking. Obviously the expenses for two or more living as a family unit are not the same as those of individuals trying to provide their own housing, food and so on.
Realistically we have to look at this in a way that we can reduce some government expenditures but at the same time not place a hardship on seniors. The idea of the old age pension to which I referred was something that was brought in to aid people who had a problem in sustaining a reasonable standard of living in their old age. Now we are giving it out to millionaires.
The government answers on one hand by saying: "We tax it back". That is terrific. First we give away money to people who do not need it. We create a bureaucracy to give it to them and then we create another bureaucracy to get it back from them. The worst of it is that we let them keep some. The bottom line is that we cannot help the people who really need it if we keep on giving money to those who do not. That is the reason we have to address the concept of family income. It is a fair way of addressing that problem.