Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to take part in this debate today on seniors' issues. I want to thank my colleague from Hamilton Mountain for all the work she has done to bring this before the House today.
It is a very appropriate way to mark Elder Abuse Awareness Day, which we spoke of earlier today during the debate. We know this is one of the hidden problems that seniors face. Anything we can do to bring attention to the problem of elder abuse in our communities and in our families is very important.
I also want to acknowledge my colleague from Windsor West and the work he has done over the years. As well, I want to acknowledge a former NDP member of Parliament, Michelle Dockrill, for the work she did in this area. I know the member for Windsor West, when he visited my constituency to talk about the seniors' charter idea of the NDP, also credited a former member of his staff, Katy Kydd Wright, for the work she did on this important issue. I want to acknowledge the staff contribution to this as well.
The idea of the motion today emerged out of a long series of consultations from coast to coast to coast in Canada, including one that I hosted with my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster. The member for Windsor West came to a meeting in our constituencies to talk about the main issues facing seniors. The member for Burnaby—New Westminster and I had quite a number of seniors' organizations from our constituency represented at that meeting, groups like COSCO, the Council of Senior Citizens' Organizations, the Network of Burnaby Seniors, representatives from the great senior centres in the city of Burnaby, Confederation, Bonsor, Cameron and Edmonds and also people from organizations like the North Burnaby Retired Society.
They came together to talk about the key issues facing seniors and about ways that we could get those issues on the agenda of Parliament and on the agenda of the government. One of the main things we discussed, an idea to which they contributed, was the proposal for a seniors' charter. Meetings like that helped develop the idea before the House today.
I want to mention what is in the motion. The motion calls for:
(a) creating a Seniors Charter that recognizes older Canadians as creative, active and valued members of our society, and that this Charter shall enshrine the right of every senior living in Canada to the following: (i) income security, through protected pensions and indexed public income support that provides a reasonable state of economic welfare; (ii) housing, through secure accessible, and affordable housing; (iii) wellness, though health promotion and preventative care; (iv) health care, through secure, public, accessible, universal health care including primary care, dental care, homecare, palliative and geriatric care, and pharmacare; (v) self-development, through lifelong access to affordable recreation, education and training, (vi) government services, through timely access to all federal government services and programs, including family re-unification.
The folks in my riding, who got together to discuss this proposal, thought all of those were absolutely fundamental to the quality of life of seniors in Canada. I am proud they are before the House today as part of the seniors' charter idea.
We have also included something very important to ensure that seniors' rights, the charter principles, are promoted and that seniors can access those rights. We have done that by creating a seniors advocate. The seniors advocate, according to the motion, will have the following responsibilities:
(i) conduct public education and awareness initiatives on the rights of seniors; (ii) ensure that all new or revised policies and programs affecting seniors receive public input from older persons; (iii) require that all new policies and programs affecting seniors are announced with specific timelines for implementation; (iv) act as an Ombudsman for seniors with respect to all government services and programs making recommendations as appropriate and...publish and report annually to Parliament on government policies and programs affecting seniors, including the effectiveness of federal funding related to the needs of older persons.
The seniors advocate is an important measure of accountability. It would go hand in hand with the seniors charter. It will ensure that we are not just giving lip service to these ideas, but that we are actually making progress and keeping the affairs, the concerns and the needs of seniors before Parliament. It is a very comprehensive motion in that regard and I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak in support of it.
Last weekend, six members of the NDP caucus, all of us from British Columbia, visited the riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca. We had the opportunity to have a round table discussion with representatives of seniors organizations from Esquimalt and the greater Victoria area. I was lucky enough to be part of a small group that included Bel Paul, Faye Kemmis, Phil Lyons, Clara Halber and Janette George, all whom are very active as individuals or in seniors organizations in the greater Victoria area. We had an interesting discussion about the concerns and needs of seniors. The group mentioned the things they were working on to improve the lives of their fellow senior citizens.
Some of issues that came out of this group discussion were obvious ones. They are ones we hear about all the time, but have not done enough to address them. Health care was a key one. Emergency care was another. Concerns were brought up about privatized hospital services, the need for long term care beds, home care, pharmacare, preventative care, enforcement of the Canada Health Act and how we hold provinces accountable for the services provided and how federal money is spent. All these issues are included in the seniors charter.
The group also raised other issues such as seniors abuse and the difficulty seniors face in accessing information from the government, especially when it is only provided by phone. Pension income, especially women's pension income was raised. My colleague from London—Fanshawe addressed that. Housing for low income seniors was another issue raised by this group. They also mentioned the need for a guaranteed liveable income as opposed to a guaranteed annual income or some other measures. Concern was raised about Internet access for seniors, since it is such an important communication and organizing tool as well as a key source of information.
The group also talked about the need for advocates for seniors at the local level. An interesting project in the greater Victoria area is underway at the present time in this regard, which merits our attention.
Lots of important ideas came out of the meeting. I am proud to say that the motion before us would go some way toward ensuring that these issues are firmly on the government's agenda.
I want to talk specifically about immigration issues and the concerns around family reunification. There is a huge backlog in parental and grandparental applications in our immigration system. Right now there are over 108,000 applications. We are violating a promise we made to immigrants when they came to Canada. We promised them that they could sponsor their parents and their grandparents to come to Canada. We are not doing very well on that promise. It is taking over 37 months to process an application. Even at the optimum, it will take five to six years to deal with the backlog, although some estimates have it up to 10 years. This is a major concern.
We have a serious problem facing us with respect to this backlog, and the Conservatives have not announced a plan on how to deal with it. They cancelled the pre-election promise that the Liberals made of $700 million to be put toward the backlog. That would have reduced the backlog only slightly. Now we have a backlog of 108,000 parental and grandparental applications and almost 825,000 applications in the system. This is completely unacceptable to those families who take their obligations to their parents and grandparents seriously.
Family reunification has always been a hallmark of our immigration system. Unfortunately, the new minister is leaving that out of his overview of the immigration system. He did not talk about family reunification, when he listed the key aspects of our immigration program. This is a very serious issue. We have to be relentless in ensuring that family reunification and parental and grandparental reunification are priorities of the government.
The issue of the old age pension and new immigrants is also extremely important. New immigrants have to wait 10 years before they become eligible for the old age pension. This puts many of them at hardship. Even after they become Canadian citizens, they are still not eligible until that 10 year threshold. This is unacceptable and it needs to be addressed.
If British people immigrate to the United States, they get an upgraded pension from the British government. If they immigrate to Canada, they are not eligible for this. Canada has to pursue this with the British government to ensure that these people receive a liveable benefit to help them lead the quality of life we all want for them and expect for them.
Many issues need to be on the government agenda, particularly immigration. I suspect I might have a bit more time to conclude my remarks after question period.