Mr. Speaker, I was proud to be elected in 1987 on the very same day as the hon. member's mother was. I am very proud to have known her and served with her in the House of Commons. I know all hon. members share in our condolences to him on the loss of his mother at the beginning of the election campaign this year.
The question is an important one. I do not even think the word “poverty” was mentioned in the speech. We all know the people who will be most affected by a recession. We are not fearmongering, we are just talking about the projections of what will follow the kind of financial crisis we have. We expect there to be some sort of recession. Some places are already in a recession. However, the people who are most hurt by that are the ones who are already in poor circumstances.
We had the advantage of a series of economists, including from the CAW and the Conference Board of Canada, appear before our caucus on Wednesday. One thing we were told was that if we raised the OAS, that alone could significantly reduce, in fact possibly eliminate, poverty for our seniors. That is something I think we should do. It is more important than corporate tax cuts.