Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to address the guaranteed income supplement issue.
I want to stress the comments made by the hon. member for Champlain, who expended a great deal of time and effort in trying to help his fellow citizens, Quebec's elderly, so that they get their due.
Put simply, the issue can be summed up in one sentence: to get their due. Seniors in Quebec and Canada have worked all their lives to now get what they are owed. The fight led by the Bloc Quebecois on the GIS issue was simply to ensure that all men and women, all seniors who were entitled to it, would indeed get it.
We are once again here in this House to discuss a program that government members are trying to defend by saying “Yes, we are advertising, we are promoting this program”.
As for us, we have now moved on to the second stage, which is to obtain retroactivity. It is fine to say “Yes, we will give the guaranteed income supplement to seniors in Quebec and in Canada”, but the government must also repay these people the money to which they have been entitled for eight years and of which they have been deprived. So, the Bloc Quebecois has moved on to the second stage.
It is the seniors who are listening to us now who are entitled to this money, and they alone can judge. The Liberal members have just said that they have done everything.
How long has it been since seniors in Quebec and in Canada saw their old age pension increased? The cost of housing has shot up in recent months and in the past year, but the old age pension has stayed the same.
Seniors in Quebec and in Canada must therefore understand that it is up to them to pass judgment on the government, and they should not let it off lightly. In the end, all the government wants is to be able to point to nice budgets and wonderful surpluses so that it can get re-elected.
We on this side of the House are being accused of grandstanding, when in fact we have devoted much time and energy to trying to meet with Quebec's seniors and obviously attempting to do something to improve the lot of seniors in Canada..
We have invested all this time and energy—as the hon. member for Champlain so aptly said—not to grandstand but simply to ensure that Quebec's seniors receive their due.
Once again, I would point out that, unlike the Liberal Party of Canada, we have moved on to the second stage, which is to obtain full retroactivity for these people, in other words, everything owing them for the past eight years.
In the months to come, we will no doubt move on to the next stage, which is getting the old age pension indexed so that seniors can keep up with increases in the cost of housing.