Mr. Speaker, I have listened very carefully to what the hon. member had to say. Of course this new department would have a great deal to offer many people, seniors in particular.
That is not where the problem lies. The problem lies mainly with the encroachment into areas of provincial jurisdiction, and the jurisdiction of Quebec in particular. We have all understood it: what we want is for the federal government to respect its jurisdictions as set out in the 1867 Constitution.
My hon. colleague has just been referring to the guaranteed income supplement. We know that this is a battle that the Bloc Québécois has been waging tirelessly for some time. The hon. member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain can testify to that, as he has put a great deal of effort into it. In Quebec, 68,000 seniors have been deprived of the GIS, and in all of Canada , 270,000.
I would like to ask the hon. member why his government, despite all its fine words and expressions of good intentions, will not agree to make the GIS fully retroactive. That way, it would be able to go back. not 11 months, but 11 years. As a result, all the people who have been deprived of the GIS since 1993 could now be getting it. It must be made retroactive, and retroactive back to 1993. I would like the hon. member to explain to me why they are passing off the creation of this department as a cure-all, when there are still people in need, still people whom this government has deprived of the guaranteed income supplement and full retroactivity of that supplement