Mr. Speaker, if the question is about the seniors in my riding, I met with a group of them just last week when I was in the constituency. They expressed some very serious concerns. If they were looking to the federal government, and what the federal government has done for them, it would be a very short list.
They made it clear to me that there are two types of issues. There is the pension issue itself. They have lost ground when it comes to pensions, their buying power, what they can do with and how they get along on their pensions. I want to make it clear that seniors in my part of the country, like seniors all across this country, do not want a lot. They do not want to take money from young people who are paying income tax. That is not what they want. However, they do want an acceptable standard of living. They are losing ground on that account and in many cases they simply do not have that anymore.
They said their housing costs are going up. If they live in their own homes, there is the cost of various types of inputs: heating fuel, electricity and income tax. Even seniors who make just $10,000 a year still pay income tax. That is unbelievable. They ask if the income tax could be reduced? That is the same complaint we hear with other groups of people.
Really, what seniors are saying is that they do not want to be the forgotten group. They are making up a lot larger percentage of the population all the time. They know that causes some problems; however, they just want some foresight from government in dealing with some of these issues. They want some planning and they are not seeing it, and they are concerned because of that.