Mr. Speaker, I too, like the member speaking before me, am probably making my last speech. I am familiar enough with the standing orders for having sat in and chaired the Quebec National Assembly and been a member here since 2000. The arguments the government has raised will not convince seniors that it cannot give them back their money. That is very clear.
I am not asking for new money, but rather what belongs to them. This bill was not introduced last week. It has been before Parliament for over a year. If this is in fact my last speech, I will have the great pleasure of telling seniors that I at least got this far. With the help of the NDP and the Conservatives, we could give them the $3 billion taken from them. It was not perhaps done on purpose. However, the people the other members working on this and I met were well aware of the fact that it was for those who had not been informed that we were calling for the reimbursement.
Jane Stewart, the minister at the time, acknowledged the situation, improved it and provided more information. She told me, however, that it was impossible for her to pay the people back retroactively. Why? If I owe the government money, how is it that it can claim the money from me retroactively as far back as five or ten years and make me pay a penalty? That is perfectly legal. It is a whole different matter, however, when seniors, living in miserable conditions I can attest to, forgot it or were not told of it and realized five years later that they had been owed money for five years.
The government did not want to be robbed, but seniors are not robbers. Without saying where they are to be found, I will say the robbers are readily recognizable. These people are not robbers. They simply lacked information. In fact, we were put onto the trail by a Toronto journalist. It was not even our idea. He discovered that a number of seniors were short of money, when there was money here in Parliament that belonged to them. This money was wasted. Look at the sponsorship scandal. We can see where the money went. It was wasted. You should be ashamed.
When they say that—