Mr. Speaker, it is a very good day for seniors today. I want to start by thanking hon. members in the chamber for their unanimous support in getting the bill to committee.
I want to point out a few honourable mentions. Of course my colleague, the hon. member for Chatham-Kent—Essex, is the seconder of the bill. I want to commend the hard work especially by the New Democrat members for Windsor—Tecumseh and Windsor West. Before I came to the House, they took up this battle from the member for Calgary Southeast, who was one of the original sponsors of the bill in a couple of forms before that. The official opposition today has seen fit to ensure that this at least gets to committee for some study.
In light of that, I want to move this debate away from the issue of tax fairness, of which we have heard an awful lot, to what this issue really is about, and that is tax justice. In committee we have an opportunity to finally move the debate to this issue. It needs to be started by first acknowledging that an injustice was committed January 1, 1996, when the tax rules changed for a number of Canadian seniors who collected the U.S. social security pension after retirement. That changed their entire retirement assumptions, the money they had available for living out their years.
Many wound up extremely bitter. To this day, those who survive, fewer in number and many stricken with ailments, are still very bitter about this. They long for the day when all parties acknowledge in the House that an injustice was committed with respect to taxation. Those who retired after the rule changed have not experienced the same injustice.
I know the bill asks for an across the board lowering of the inclusion rate. I hope the committee will come up with a real solution which would achieve a grandfathering for seniors who were originally affected after retirement. The bill hopes to address that. Perhaps the committee could hear testimony and attain the desired wording for the change to achieve that. This will send a clear signal if we can achieve a result like this in committee and beyond, and that being the fact that the House is concerned with tax justice for seniors.
I will conclude with a very humble thanks to all hon. members in the House for their support for the bill. This is indeed, as I stated in my opening comments, a great day for Canadian seniors. It will be a better day when the change is finally passed, whether as a budget item, or by this bill or by whatever means, to address the tax injustice. That will indeed be the greatest day for seniors in Canada.