Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his passion on this issue. As I said in my remarks, it is very important that we respect our seniors because of the incredible contribution they have made to our country. We put pension splitting for seniors in place, at the request of seniors, in our prebudget consultations two years ago. We heard a resounding request for that.
It is probably not perfect, but it was a position that was asked for by seniors, a position that we could take and move forward. I would argue that this is exactly what we are doing.
I heard loud and clear from every part of the country. I repeat, we had public sessions open to all seniors who wanted to come and share their concerns with us. To be fair, we were trying to hear about what was our jurisdiction federally, the federally regulated private pension plans.
I need to share with all hon. members the concern that other seniors raised outside of that parameter. They shared that with their provincial ministers as well. Not all finance ministers in the provinces are responsible for pension regulation, so we have a bit of a challenge with that. When the finance ministers get together, not all of them are responsible for pensions.
At the federal-provincial-territorial finance ministers meeting, pensions was probably the most discussed issue around the table. That is why we are coming forward with a research working group to address the adequacy of retirement income in Canada.