Mr. Speaker, first of all, I must admit that the hon. member for Matapédia-Matane did listen very carefully to my comments about seniors.
As I said earlier, seniors pay taxes from the day they are born until they retire. Even after they retire, the government still finds a way to claw back by taxing any income of $26,500 or more they derive from their pension funds, their RRSPs and other financial resources they managed to set aside while raising their families.
Today's families are a little smaller than they used to be; families with 9, 10 or 12 children were not uncommon when I was growing up. Today, they are not as common but it was hard for the man who was the sole income-earner in his family to support his family and save some money for retirement at the same time.
I also said, and I am sure that in my riding of Charlevoix, from Petite-Rivière-Saint-François to Baie-Comeau, some seniors have enough money to survive, but many more were farmers, worked for minimum wage, or had to leave the region, while the mother had to raise the children on her own.
Of course, as the hon. member for Matane said, the committee we want to set up could look at family trusts, for instance, and also look at the additional corporate revenues the government does not want to tax, preferring to tax capital.
We have our work cut out for us. We have been elected for the next four years and I think we in the Bloc Quebecois must not be prevented from doing our job. Liberal members opposite often accuse us of criticizing government actions. I hope they do not want to prevent us from doing our job.
I am convinced that the silent majority is not here in this House but in people's living rooms; they may be watching us on TV and when they see us on the street, in stores or in other places, they congratulate us and tell us they agree with our comments in this House.
I did not complete extensive studies in accounting and I am not a tax expert either. I am a construction worker like most people in my riding and that of Matane. I am pleased to represent them and be able to address them as equals.
So, Mr. Speaker, I think I have taken enough time to respond to my colleague from Matane-Matapédia and I will let others take part in the debate.