Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Fredericton, who just spoke. He spoke about the budget. It is interesting. He said that for him, the budget addressed health, the Kyoto protocol, defence and poverty.
I have a question for him, because this budget contains one incredible oversight, in my opinion. Last year, I took part in a tour of Quebec to discuss, among other things, the guaranteed income supplement. Thousands of poor and vulnerable seniors were forgotten by this government in connection with the guaranteed income supplement.
The scope of the problem was such that the tour and the work of the Bloc Quebecois and others resulted in finding more than 20,000 seniors in Quebec alone who are now receiving the guaranteed income supplement, an annual supplement to which they were entitled before, but did not receive. The minister, and I commend her, improved the situation by providing more information and making it more accessible.
However, there is one thing that needs to be mentioned. I am not saying that all seniors are poor, but the government is now acknowledging that for at least eight years, the poorest seniors have been denied what they needed. They were denied the minimum they needed, the vital minimum.
It seems to me that in terms of poverty, it would have been possible to find the money in this budget to give to these seniors, out of honesty. This is money that was taken from them, immorally, or that they were deprived of, immorally.
I would like to ask the member for Fredericton if he agrees with me that this budget should have included measures to reimburse these amounts owed to seniors.