Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Repentigny.
In my life, I have had the opportunity to experience, hear, debate and criticize a number of throne speeches. In Quebec City, I seized each opportunity to speak because it was a golden opportunity to talk about the problems in my riding, the contents of the throne speech and what it was lacking.
I must admit that, in Quebec City, the throne speech was delivered by a premier I really admired. He had so many plans and ideas for Quebec's future that the throne speech debate could have lasted a long time. The throne speech was not short on content. Mr. Lévesque was recognized as being a good writer who had something to say. His throne speeches were rich in substance.
I also had the opportunity to work with the late Claude Ryan, whose funeral will be held tomorrow. Claude Ryan was not a member of my party, but I must recognize that, in the Quebec Parliament, while he was there and I got to work with him, I saw that he made a positive contribution. His speeches were always well thought out. I enjoyed working and discussing things with him, even if I disagreed with his ideas.
I also want to take this opportunity—surely the Chair will not object—to express my condolences to his family, who is now mourning their loss.
I was terribly disappointed by this throne speech. First of all, because it makes a fundamental oversight. There is absolutely no mention of seniors. This is disappointing and scandalous. If we live in a country that we love and want to develop, be it Quebec or Canada, if we can express ourselves today, it is because others went before us and worked hard. They deserve not only our respect but also maximum benefits during their old age, or at least the benefits they are entitled to.
Since I arrived in the House, I have worked on matters relating to seniors, including the guaranteed income supplement. A terrible and unpardonable injustice has been done here. I met at least 3,000 people who work with seniors' associations. I met 15,000 seniors and held a total of 37 meetings in all the regions. Everyone condemned the fact that seniors had not been treated fairly enough.
Even the government recognized it, because it did improve things. So, as a result, over the past year, there are probably some 25,000 people in Quebec out of 68,000 have started receiving the guaranteed income supplement to which they were entitled but which they did not receive before. Thus, some work has been done. Still, there are many people who have not been found. Even among the ones who have been found, some have truly been robbed. There are people who are owed money.
Two weeks ago, I was in the parish of Notre-Dame-des-Anges-de-Montauban, in my riding. A couple wanted to speak to me. Both were 70 years old.
They said to me, “Thank you. You came to give a talk and you opened out eyes. Ever since, we have $4,000 more each year; $2,000 for each of us”.
“Monsieur Éthier, how old are you?”, I asked, and he answered, “We are both 70”. I asked further, “Have you been getting the supplement since you turned 65?” “No,” he replied, “this is the first time we have got it, and they told us we were only entitled to 11 months of retroactivity”.
That is outrageous. These people, this couple, were entitled to $4,000. This is $20,000 over five years. I have met people like that all over Quebec. These are people who were eligible, but, for various reasons, had not received any money, and no one had made an effort to give it to them. These are people who, for various reasons, were unaware. About 14% of seniors eligible for the guaranteed income supplement are not receiving it.
In all of Canada, that means some 270,000 people. I would have thought that in his throne speech, the new Prime Minister would have talked about these people and righted the injustice that has been done to them, but no. Every time we talk about it, they tell us that the retroactive period is only 11 months. But listen carefully to me.
This same Prime Minister, who was finance minister and owner of Canada Steamship Lines, among others, had legislation passed in 1997 or 1998 retroactive to 1995 so that he could pocket $100 million, money he could have paid in taxes to the government if he had not conducted his business with a tax haven in Barbados. He managed, in a roundabout way, to get $100 million to put in his pockets.
With the $100 million he pocketed, based on an average of $4,000 a year—for seniors who were denied the guaranteed income supplement, which ranges between $1 and $6,000, the average being $4,000 a year—25,000 seniors could have received the guaranteed income supplement. With the $100 million he pocketed, every senior in Quebec whom we could find could have enjoyed 24 months of retroactivity instead of 11 months.
However, retroactive legislation was possible for him. This is something I personally will never be able to accept. Rest assured, the general public does not accept this either. In my view, this scandal is almost as bad as the sponsorship scandal, which has been the talk of the town all week.
I am disappointed to see that, in this Parliament, in this government, people have such bad memories. There are people who see things happening, but yet it seems that they have heard nothing, seen nothing. For example, the Prime Minister told us today, in connection with the Barbados business, that he fought against it. He fought against it, yet got $100 million out of it.
Why could there not have been something in the inaugural speech about restoring justice to older Canadians? Why was there nothing? I find this unbelievable. I will not have time to talk about the sponsorship scandal, although much is being said about that these days.
It seems that the same man who was able to make retroactive legislation back in 1997 in order to line his own pockets had no idea there was any scandal going on, that a bunch of Liberals were lining their pockets through the sponsorship program. The amount involved is around a half million dollars. Approximately $100 million went into the waiting pockets of a lot of little Liberal friends who were buddy-buddy with those in power.
Now it would appear that the same Prime Minister, who used to be finance minister, who used to be Treasury Board vice-president, did not know. He signed the cheques, gave out the money, but did not know there was anything dishonest going on. So there is another $100 million that could ensure that those seniors I referred to before receive 36 months of retroactive payments instead of 24 on the money they are owed.
This is why we are disappointed in this government. There is nothing in the throne speech to improve the situation.