Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member talk about the redistribution of income. I think that was his last comment. I was surprised how he took exception to the proposals in the budget to restructure old age pensions. Basically the budget sought to define those people who are most in need in our democracy, those people who have less income in their retirement years. It sought to underpin their incomes in their retirement years. Indeed it actually increased their real disposable income. It made those payments non-taxable.
I heard the member say at one point in his speech there was a need to redistribute income. At another time I heard him take some exception to the fact that we have spent a lot of time in designing this legislation to create that safety net for the elderly.
I know as well that a committee is currently travelling throughout the country talking about the Canada pension plan. I am sure also that one of the parameters there is to ensure that those funds will be available for those people who are most in need.
These are things which I think are courageous of the government. We could simply forget about the Canada pension plan and by the year 2015 the cheques would stop coming. That perhaps would not hurt people who have high incomes but of course for those people who had not anticipated that it would create undue hardship.
Our government has taken the time and the energy to recognize there is a problem coming, maybe not tomorrow but by the year 2015. We want to deal with problems today so a future generation of Canadians will have adequate means for retirement.
I would like to know how the member can argue that we are not redistributing income while at the same time he argues we should not be underpinning the retirement incomes of seniors who have less income than others.