Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have another opportunity to speak to Bill C-78. We have had precious few opportunities, given that the debate was shut down at second reading after only four hours and the committee hearings were stifled and curtailed to the point where we entertained very few witnesses, even though all of the opposition parties advocated hearing 40 to 50 witnesses and even taking the show on the road.
We believe that this bill is so important we should be touring the country with it so that seniors would have an opportunity to make representation and to research it, as happened when the government tried to make changes to the seniors benefit when the guaranteed income supplement and the old age security were to be merged into one seniors benefit. That was a huge, fundamental change in the way we deal with retirees and senior citizens in this country. To its credit, the government went on the road. There was a huge touring task force which heard from people from all walks of life.
The reaction and the very predictable consequence was that seniors mobilized. They got active and they mobilized their opposition to a huge degree and the government had to back off. Presumably the reason the government is closing debate on this bill is because it does not want the same thing to happen again. The Liberals know they are on shaky ground and they know that the public outrage is only starting to build momentum. In the last few weeks the public has had time to start to research the bill and to send newsletters to the memberships of their organizations to get seniors motivated and active in opposition to this bill. I predict that had they let democracy take its course, we would have seen a huge backlash, a huge outcry.
I think any government should be very cautious about taking on senior citizens. A government would have to be crazy to mobilize a fair fight against the seniors' movement because seniors are well informed, they are well read and they are well organized. We cross them at our peril if we are fighting a fair fight. However, the government clearly is not because it has taken away any opportunity for seniors or their elected representatives to raise all of the issues that are necessary.
From day one I have maintained—