Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to the speech from the member and that of my colleague on this very important issue. Everyone knows how concerned I am about the situation of older adults. My role within my party is to defend older adults and to question the government about their situation.
The bill being introduced is full of good intentions, but we cannot support it because, as the member says, it interferes directly with provincial jurisdictions.
I am against having to take multiple steps to complete one task. This is not legislation that is going to protect older adults. In Quebec, we already have a Public Curator, the Conseil des aînés, and the CLSCs, that do roughly what this legislation is asking be done.
When I was an MLA in Quebec, I made it my duty to visit all the retirement homes at least twice a year. I did that for 9 years, which means I did it at least 18 times. I saw the abuse that goes on and I had the opportunity to make changes. However, it is not by implementing another council or another level of protection, legislation or officials that we are going to improve the situation.
Older adults have the right to be informed. It is by giving them information that we will help them, since they already have the Public Curator, the Conseil des aînés and the CLSCs. These agencies already exist in Quebec.
The legislation could be helpful if it made changes to the Criminal Code. That is an area that might need some work. We could rewrite the legislation in order to amend the Criminal Code because it could be flawed with respect to this issue.
This bill explains what constitutes abuse of older adults. The following is the definition provided for abuse:
The knowing infliction of physical, psychological or financial harm on an older adult.
I am scandalized by the introduction of this bill. Yes, there is financial harm. The one most responsible for financial harm is the federal government. It has kept money from at least 270,000 older Canadians. I have travelled across Quebec and in some parts of Canada, including Vancouver. I have met people who are the victims of the government. This does not mean that there are not people as well who financially abuse older people. I know this goes on.
However, when the government itself does not provide the information to ensure that people receive the guaranteed income supplement, when the government itself does not take measures to find these people, even by going door to door to meet the people who are entitled to their money because it is owed to them, when the government does not do so, I think that introducing a bill such as this one will not improve anything.
This is quite simple. There are 270,000 Canadians, including 68,000 Quebecers, who did not receive the guaranteed income supplement. I took part in 37 meetings across Quebec. I met almost all the news media there are and we managed to find people who were entitled to it. The department told me it may have found about 75,000 people that it was looking for, and about 30,000 in Quebec alone. This means that, in Quebec alone, about $100 million are now in the pockets of the poorest, who need it and who were deprived of it because of the inaction of the federal government.
Let them pass legislation, at any time, to require the federal government to reimburse seniors for the money stolen from them because they were not informed. This is money of which seniors were deprived, and it was used to the government's profit. These seniors were unable to cope, had little education, were alone, sick, abandoned to their own devices, and could not obtain the necessary information. Nothing was done to get it to them. In order to get what was coming to them, these seniors had to make a phone call, talk to a machine, and dial 22 numbers, only to hear that all the lines were busy.
That is how the information was given out. If someone did manage to get hold of an application form, it took an accountant or a lawyer to fill it out. Today I say this: enact legislation that will require the government to do the same for seniors to whom money is owing, as the former finance minister did, for example, for his shipping companies, which have come up again today. A way was found, retroactively, to put money into the pockets of certain individuals.
It is true that the seniors I speak for have been abused by this government. That does not mean that the government is alone in doing so. Still, they have been abused by the government and I think that it is criminal that, in their twilight years, because they are ill or do not have much money, or because they simply have no fighting spirit left, they are not given what they deserve, and no one takes care of them, although there are many organizations that could help them.
In Quebec there are the CLSCs and there are golden age clubs. There are many organizations whose sole purpose is to help people. I have dealt with these organizations on my travels around Quebec and I have found some incredible things. For example, I met a woman in Sherbrooke, who has since died, who lived out her senior years on $6,000 a year: just the old age pension. I calculated that the government saved $90,000, because of that woman.
In my opinion, legislation is not what we need to correct this. What we need is a little honesty in the system. We must use what we already have. We must use the information that can get to the people who need it. We must make use of the people working in the field who are only too glad to provide assistance. There are service clubs of all kinds and these people are ready to help us.
The Criminal Code needs some amendment, it is true. I said so a moment ago. Still, if it means that the services provided in Quebec are duplicated, I do not agree. Calculations show it is wasted time. Having more discussions at various times is fine; I,too, would like to be called as a witness to talk about it before a commission. I would work until I got back the money owed to those very deserving people. The older generation was here ahead of me; they built this country and they are entitled to our utmost respect.