Mr. Speaker, this bill deals with an issue which I spoke to in the 2000, the 2004 and now the 2006 parliaments. I raised this issue in 2001, in the very first speech I made in the House.
As we heard from the member for Essex, the author of the bill, this matter has been outstanding for over 10 years. It is a history of injustice, a history of governments changing the rules after the fact. In effect, whether intentional or simply systemic, it is an attack on our seniors, as we heard from the member for Essex, a generation of whom this country has every reason to be supportive and protective, and not to misuse or abuse. That is what happened in 1996. Part of this is a mistake that was made by a number of officials at that time, officials who, to this day, still refuse to admit that mistake, but it left a great number of our seniors vulnerable.
Basically they had lived under a tax system and had taken deductions at 50% instead of the full 100% as we have for RRSPs in Canada. They had planned their retirement based on having a certain level of income. A great number of them, including those who unfortunately have passed away, said that they could live to a certain standard if they had this income and they retired on that basis. Then in the 1996-97 period, the Canadian federal government put into place a new regime which seriously impaired their ability to live that lifestyle.
I am speaking as a lawyer. This is about a deal that was made. The seniors have lived up to it but the federal government has not. The United States federal government has, because there were corresponding responsibilities as we entered into amendments to our tax treaties with the United States. It had certain responsibilities as to how it would treat the recipients of Canada pension. The United States federal government has lived up to that. It did not change the responsibility of Americans receiving Canada pension benefits while living in the United States. We did and we changed them quite dramatically, especially when we consider how vulnerable a large number of those 85,000 were at that time and how dependent they were on that income.
By the standards of the income that members of Parliament receive, we are talking a pittance. The average recipient of social security receives less than $100 a month, which does not sound like a lot of money. It is less than $1,200 a year, but when one is living on a basic fixed income, that is a very significant amount of money.
I am going to tell two stories of our experience in this regard in the Windsor area. I was canvassing one time during an election campaign. At one door I met a man who told me that his brother lived with him. The brother used to live on his own but he could not afford to any more. He was one of those recipients. When the extra tax was taken from him, he no longer could live on his own. He would not even come out of his room, except to use the washroom. The man would take food to his brother in his room. I wanted to talk with the brother and asked if he would meet with me, but he would not. That is typical.
Then there is my friend at church who, to this day, even at church, still curses the former prime minister who originally was from my riding. She is a very saintly woman but she and her husband were both recipients. They came back from the United States, bought a house and had a mortgage to pay. When the tax grab by the federal government came in, they no longer could afford the house and they had to sell it. As saintly and holy a woman as she is, she retains that anger.