Mr. Speaker, this is a very important debate for the House and for all of Canada. I am pleased to be part of a caucus that has been forging ahead with an idea that is now beginning to gain resonance across the country.
The idea of a charter for seniors is fundamental to our notion of a civil society, because in fact it recognizes that we are indebted to those people who built this country and sacrificed so much in growing this nation as well as in fighting world wars and building a future for other generations. We owe it to those people to ensure that they live the rest of their lives in decent conditions with respect and with great admiration.
I do not think that you, Mr. Speaker, or anyone in the House can say we have done a very good job of that. There are too many seniors in our midst who live in abject poverty. There are too many seniors in our midst who live with abuse, with financial, physical, sexual, mental and emotional abuse. There are too many seniors in our midst who are struggling just to preserve some sense of dignity, because it gets awfully difficult to make ends meet when the governments of the day keep pulling and cutting and offloading responsibilities for areas that are fundamentally important to seniors.
Therefore, this debate is very timely. It is meant to be a constructive proposition to the House and to Canadians about what we can do as parliamentarians, as elected representatives, to make a difference in the lives of seniors.
So often seniors tune into this place on CPAC or whatever and see and hear a lot of words. There is a lot of good rhetoric here today about how we are going to care for seniors, but even as this debate goes on it gets shuffled off into jurisdictional issues. We get immobilized worrying about whose area we are treading on and who will do the job.
What seniors are saying to us today is “think outside the box”. We cannot fix the problems of seniors and ensure they live out their lives with decency and dignity unless we actually get a little more creative and a little more willing to spend a bit of money, which will go a long way to making a big difference.
I want to give an example. In my own constituency, seniors are struggling to ensure that there is better transportation, because if there is better transportation, seniors can get out. They can socialize. They can go to a restaurant. They can go to a fitness program. They can go to meet a friend. They can get exercise. They can ensure good emotional health and well-being because they have that kind of freedom.
What do we offer today in that context? Unless we live in the centre of a city that has rapid transit and we are right at the doorstep for that transit, there is no alternative. There are no options. There is no way to be able to just freely live our lives without feeling dependent upon someone else.
In Winnipeg, groups like the Seven Oaks Seniors' Links, the Point Douglas Seniors Coalition and others are trying to put together proposals that cross jurisdictional boundaries, and they are calling on us to do something about it. They ask why they cannot get a little money from the federal government to rent a city bus to go around a neighbourhood and pick up seniors on a regular basis so they can go off and do what they like to do and feel good about themselves.
What answer do they get? That it is not federal jurisdiction and that the federal government cannot possibly give money for a bus service in downtown Winnipeg or the north end of Winnipeg. Why not? It is health and well-being. It is part of ensuring that seniors stay healthy longer. We all know about the examples, yet we cannot seem to break out of these boxes and do that.
If there is one thing we do today, we should adopt this proposal, this charter. First, it is to say that seniors' rights are fundamental and that is why we want them entrenched in a charter, and second, it is to say “let us start applying this charter”, so that it is not just a bunch of words and gobbledygook. Let us apply it to the day to day lives of seniors.
The transportation issue seems to me to be such a logical one to apply this to, but we can go on and talk about health care generally, as my colleague from Surrey North has done, and talk about the need for seniors to access, on a universal basis, dental care and pharmaceuticals. We have let down our seniors on that front so much that it is hard to actually come to terms with it.
Seniors thought about those promises over the last 13 years under the Liberals and then they looked to the Conservatives under the last budget for some attempt to live up to those promises, whether they were specific promises to establish a national pharmacare program, as the Liberals promised for about four elections in a row, or whether it is the Conservative rhetoric of saying, “We respect our seniors. We want to make sure they do not live in destitution and we will do everything we can”.
Where is the meat? Where is the action? Where is the program?
Why do seniors today have to worry about filling a prescription or putting food on the table? Why do seniors today have to turn down the heat in the dead of winter in Winnipeg because they have to save money to stretch their dollars?
Why, in this day and age, do we not at least recognize that we have an obligation as a society, as a government, to ensure that all seniors have access to basic medical services? Beyond hospital insurance and beyond visits to doctors, we must look at dental care, pharmaceutical coverage or pharmacare, and home care.
These are all things that have been promised over the years and were never acted upon. They are affordable, they are important, and they will make a difference to the way in which our seniors are able to live out their last years. Frankly, I cannot think of anything more important than that.
I cannot think of anything more meaningful than for this Parliament to say that we will make this our undertaking, we will conquer this field and we will do what seniors want us to do. That is to ensure that they can live with some sense of economic security: we will provide a regular increase of OAS and GIS, old age security and the guaranteed income supplement, as the cost of living increases; we will ensure that we act cooperatively with all jurisdictions and forge new programs when it comes to things like transportation and recreation; and we will provide the basics when it comes to health and well-being.
It is often said that a measure of any society is determined by how we treat the most vulnerable among us. When it comes to seniors in our society today, I think that over the years we have created a situation of making them some of the most vulnerable citizens in our society.
Especially when it comes to older women, our record is deplorable. In fact, we have some of the worst statistics anywhere in the world for poverty among older women. We also have a terrible record of actually preventing this kind of society where people are sandwiched between caring for their kids and caring for their parents without any supports. We have done little to acknowledge the role of family, communities and governments in working together to create the very best for our seniors.
This motion is simply an attempt to forge a new path for our seniors and to make a difference in the lives of our citizens. At the same time, all of us in this House celebrate what seniors are doing on their own on a volunteer basis, without very much help from government. I just have to go through the list in my constituency. Manitoba is a very important example, of course, because we probably have the highest per capita population of seniors anywhere in the country, with more than 157,000 residents aged 65 years or older. That is about 14%. That is expected to increase to 33% by 2001, so we have a particularly critical situation in Manitoba.
We are working hard to prepare for that day with a provincial government that is committed to working with seniors. It has a seniors secretariat and an excellent home care program, but it is still facing many difficulties because it is impossible for the government to do this on its own.
I want to conclude by referencing the good work of organizations such as Point Douglas Seniors Coalition, Seven Oaks Senior's Links, Keewatin/Inkster Neighbourhood Resource Council, Gwen Secter Creative Living Centre, Main Street Age & Opportunity Senior Centre, North Centennial Seniors, Aboriginal Seniors Resource Centre, Filipino Seniors Group, Punjabi Seniors Group, Manitoba Society of Seniors, and many more, as well as people like Al Cerilli, Ron Mills, Archie Orlikow and the late Murray Smith, who have worked so hard for dignity and security for everyone among us. I commend them.
I urge the House to support this motion.