Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Repentigny for his moving remarks about a senior who was short changed with the guaranteed income supplement. He spoke a little about how it was shameful that the government is going to pay down the national debt—which is not a bad thing—when it should start by paying back the money owed to seniors.
The Bloc Québécois is not asking for new subsidies to be created here. They have a right to that money; they simply did not claim it in the past, because the government did not provide enough information.
If, as a country, we are going to pay our debts, we should start by paying back the debt we owe to seniors. It is even more shocking that they cannot get full retroactivity. I think that if the situation were reversed, if the seniors had failed to pay their taxes for five or ten years, they would not be able to tell the tax man that it has been more than 11 months, and too bad for him, but they are not going to pay their taxes.
Does my colleague not find this double standard absolutely disgraceful? If a senior owes the government money, it will go back 5, 10, 15 years, but when the government owes money to seniors, for some inexplicable and unknown reason, they get only 11 months retroactivity.
Also, does my colleague not find it shameful that during its election campaign, the government promised to fix this problem and it still has not? It is breaking—