Madam Speaker, I see the minister has a desire to change things.
I thank him too for giving me the opportunity to brag a little. To his question, “What did he do?”, I answer that I travelled around Quebec. I even went beyond Quebec, as far as Vancouver. We learned that 270,000 Canadians, including 68,000 Quebeckers, had been deprived of the guaranteed income supplement. We passed this information on, so that today the number is less than half. Indeed, efforts are still being made to find some 100,000 Canadians and 25,000 Quebeckers.
An effort was also made to get the minister to improve contact with seniors. The the GIS application form was too difficult for even an accountant to complete. Even an accountant found it difficult. Seniors are often at a disadvantage for various reasons. Still, they were being asked to complete a form that made no sense.
There was a phone number to call to request the guaranteed income supplement, but, at the other end, there was an answering machine. People had to wait sometimes for as long as two hours to get an answer. Imagine a senior needing information and having to wait so long.
Once when I was interviewed on Radio-Canada in Montreal, before introducing me the host said that his researcher had dialed this number the night before and waited two hours without getting a hold of anyone. That is how seniors were treated.
Today that has changed because the Bloc Québécois took care of it by doing a tour of Quebec. We will take care of it until seniors get their due.
You say that you are investing money in the future, well that is great, but this should have been done a long time ago. There is room for improvement. You should also invest the money that you took from them in the past. It is money you owe them. The 11-month retroactivity does not exist. Often those people are sick. They have ended up in situations where they are unable to ask for what they are owed.
I visited Msgr. Clément, a parish priest in Champlain, three weeks before his death. He died a year and a half ago. Msgr. Clément was a canon lawyer. He was an extremely knowledgeable man. He said to me, “Marcel, I understand your case. I have had three strokes. I can no longer see and I can barely hear. If I did not have good people around me, who would inform me of my rights?” These are your clients.
We have to find a way to get back to these clients and give them their due. When they are lucky enough to discover that they are owed money and that the government is accountable for it, then they should at least receive retroactive payments immediately. It is simple.
Mr. Minister, if you want to do as much work as my colleagues from the Bloc and I have done in the opposition, let us embark on this together and reduce the number to virtually zero.