Mr. Speaker, I want to take this rare opportunity to follow up on a question I asked the minister recently about an error admitted to by Statistics Canada in calculating the rate of inflation.
As members will recall, I have been raising this issue in the House on behalf of seniors since it first became public in August 2006. I would like to remind members of the House and people who may be watching us tonight on television what is at issue here.
Between July 2001 and March 2006, Statistics Canada underestimated the consumer price index by one-tenth of one percentage point in each of those five years. This means that recipients of the old age security, Canada pension plan and the guaranteed income supplement were shortchanged on their cost of living adjustments for a period of five years.
When the error was discovered, the correctly calculated CPI was implemented but it was not implemented retroactively. Rather, it was implemented effective mid-2006. Seniors were never reimbursed for the intervening five years and therein lies the rub.
When I raised this question on a previous occasion, the parliamentary secretary to the minister acknowledged the mistake but said that the government was obliged to act based on published CPI data, even if those published data were wrong. The member said:
The Department of Human Resources and Social Development is required by law to use the published CPI data in the indexation of the Canada pension plan and old age security benefits. Human Resources and Social Development Canada acted correctly and according to the law.
However, as I and, indeed, seniors and newspapers from around the country have been asking: Where does that leave the seniors who were underpaid for almost five years? Should they not get a retroactive payment? It was not their fault. It was not the fault of the government department concerned. It was Statistics Canada's fault but it does not have that amount of money to pay out.
The government has acknowledged the error and corrected the current rates but so far it has dodged the issue. In fact, the government has continued to dodge the issue in question period, in correspondence and in response to petitions that I have tabled in the House.
The former minister of human resources and social development dodged the issue. The parliamentary secretary to the minister dodged the issue. The Secretary of State for Seniors dodged the issue and the current Minister of Human Resources and Social Development has dodged the issue.
Instead, they all tried to avoid taking responsibility by talking about other issues that have impacted seniors.
Tonight let me put the question as simply as I can with no more opportunities for fudging. Will the government do the right thing and reimburse seniors for the money that is owed to them as a result of Statistics Canada's miscalculation of the CPI between 2001 and 2006, yes or no?