Madam Speaker, I have to make the same comment I made to the person questioning me after speaking on the budget. I think one of the best things we can all do as parliamentarians for our constituents and for Canadians generally is to give them the facts.
Therefore, when the member who has just spoken talks about taking away the old age security and the GST and talks about those programs as being gone, finished, wiped away, he knows that is not the truth. He knows perfectly well that any senior now receiving a benefit will continue to receive exactly that benefit. He knows that any person within five years of being entitled to those benefits will be entitled to continue receiving them for the entire period of their retirement. He knows that is a commitment of the government and of the Prime Minister personally. It is precisely what is laid out in the budget, unless those seniors now aged 60 and looking forward to retirement at 65 determine that the new combined benefit is in fact to their advantage.
The member also knows that combining those benefits and directing them is going to make sure that 90 per cent of the elderly poor who are at the lowest level of income, 90 per cent being sole support women, will in fact get more not less. He knows that the benefits for today's seniors are not in danger.
That is quite a bit different from the Reform Party plan which requires everybody to put something aside for their own retirement under some kind of private RRSP system.
I remember the days when my father made $90 a month. This plan would require many families to choose between putting food on the table for their children or providing for their retirement 40 years hence. As a mother, frankly I know what choice I would make. That is not security in retirement.
As well, he knows that the Prime Minister has kept his promise concerning health care by establishing the national health forum which the Prime Minister personally chairs. Perhaps the hon. member would consider doing what I and many Liberal members have done in our ridings and hold a forum in which his constituents can give him their views, as mine have done, on what their priorities are for a sustainable health care system for the future.
The member asked about the infrastructure program. Was that value for money? Ask the 100,000 plus people who had a job for that time if they thought it was value for money.