Mr. Speaker, the previous speaker, the Conservative Whip, has touched on what I think is the essential point. It is fairness and justice with regard to this issue.
Like him, I want to pay a testimonial in my opening remarks to a couple of people from my riding in the city of Windsor, the county of Essex. They have been instrumental in keeping the fight going. This fight is basically 10 years old now. This fight has been conducted by and large by people who were retired when it started. These were people in their early sixties to early seventies who of course have now advanced in age, and a good number of whom, sadly I have to say, have passed away without achieving justice from the government.
I want to mention Olive Smith who has been the leader in our community for a good number of years. In spite of ill health on her part and ill health on the part of her husband, she has led the fight and been an inspiration to the community. She helped start a group that is commonly referred to as CASSE, Canadians Asking for Social Security Equality. This is a group that started back in the mid-nineties. It has continued on pursuing this fight for the people in my riding and my community, but also for people who are in the same circumstances right across this country.
The other person I want to mention is Bill Thrasher. He has really picked up the ball in the last few years. He was instrumental at the start, but as Olive's health has become more difficult for her to cope with, he has picked up and provided the leadership. He is constantly pressing this issue because he has a desperate need to obtain justice for himself and for those people on whose behalf he is working.
The whip of the Conservative Party mentioned some numbers. I would challenge him a bit on these numbers. When this process began, 80,000 individuals in Canada were affected by this change in their tax status. There were 80,000 recipients of social security benefits in Canada at that time.
We are not sure, because I cannot get the figure from our Department of National Revenue, but the estimate is that almost half of those people have passed away without receiving justice.
It is quite simple. This is about a contract that was made between a government and their taxpayers. The government said that if they made this contribution, it would tax them on only some of that revenue now and not on others, but when the taxpayers received the benefit from this down the road when they retired, the government said it would similarly only tax them on this amount, and it was a fifty-fifty split.
As they made the contribution to social security, they were taxed on only 50% of that money. They were exempted from the other 50%. On the other hand, when the money was coming out, they were taxed on only 50% and received the other 50% tax free. It was a straight contract between citizens and their government in the United States.
We then entered into a tax treaty with the United States, so that people receiving Canada pension in the United States would have their tax assessed on that revenue income by the United States national government, and people receiving social security residing in Canada would be taxed by the Canadian government.
The American government, to their credit, honoured the arrangement between Canadian pension receivers, who were Canadians, but living in the United States, so that they were taxed at exactly the same rate, although they were now being taxed by the U.S. government. To our eternal embarrassment and shame, Canada broke the deal. Instead of taxing on 50%, Canada began taxing on 85%.
We have to appreciate, in the sense of personal tragedy, that we had 80,000 recipients of social security in Canada who had their income changed overnight, fairly limited income in a lot of cases. All of a sudden they were losing a significant amount of dollars to the federal government in this country because of additional taxation.
They had established their lifestyle based on what the U.S. government had been taxing them. In most cases they had no way of adjusting. They were on a fixed, retirement income. Most of them were too elderly at that point to take a part time job, but some of them were forced to take one, actually.
I always tell a couple of stories with regard to this because the conduct of the government is really offensive. This was done when this Prime Minister was the finance minister. He knows because the member from Calgary told him, Mr. Thrasher told him, and Ms. Smith told him. There were hearings in the Senate on this and it was made very clear to the government that it had messed this up. The Prime Minister has repeatedly refused.
He was in my riding one time and the CASSE people were out front demonstrating. He would not confront them. He slid in through the backdoor of the hall and he left through the backdoor of the hall. That is real leadership in this country. That is a really fair way to treat our retirees and our senior citizens.
I want to mention a couple of stories. I was canvassing in one of the elections. One day a man started talking to me about the social security injustice. He mentioned that his brother, who had lived in his own apartment, was now living with him because he could no longer afford his own apartment. He had to move in with this brother. This was a man in his mid-sixties who had been independent all his life.
The man told me that his brother spends almost the entire day in his room. He comes out to go to the washroom, he comes out to get his food, and he takes his food back into his room. He has become a total recluse because he is so embarrassed that he cannot pay his way through life. He worked hard all his life, built up a pension plan that would allow him to retire with some dignity, and this is what happened.
The other story I tell is about a couple who are members of my church. Both of them had worked in the United States and had retired to Canada. They were Canadian citizens. They had never owned a house because their jobs had never allowed for that. They had looked forward to owning a house in their retirement. In fact, they bought a house the year before this change came into being. They both got slapped with what, in effect, was a 35% increase in their taxation.
For about a year they were able to continue holding on. They had taken out a relatively modest mortgage, but their incomes were small and that taxation was hurting them badly. To add to the tragedy, the husband contracted an illness and died within a year after that. There was absolutely no way his wife could manage to keep the house, so within a two year period, she had to give up that dream they had all their lives and give up the house. She had to sell it. To this day, when I see her in church, and I mean this literally, she still curses the Prime Minister. She is that angry. That anger reflects the attitude of most of the recipients of social security in Canada today toward the government.
This group has been extremely effective at bringing their cause forward. The government cannot claim it does not understand it. They met with the former deputy prime minister from Windsor West, the Right Hon. Herb Gray repeatedly. They met with both of my Liberal predecessors in my riding. They also met with the former member from Essex and the member from Chatham.
They educated them so that they would understand this. They met with the federal functionaries, who I think made the mistake initially and convinced the government; however, when they were proven wrong the government did not have the ability to reverse what was a real error and a gross injustice.
That injustice continued up until the members from Essex and Windsor West lobbied. It was a bipartisan lobby. We lobbied the finance minister who prepared the last budget and we received no response. What is it going to take for the government to come down because I have no hope that it is ever going to change? The government is going to be gone in another few months and we will finally get some justice for these people.