Mr. Chair, throughout this debate and over the last 18 or 20 months I have been curious about the government's view. When I was listening to the member talk about the TFSAs, pension income splitting, and what a retired senior who is working can earn before there is a clawback, it occurred to me the lens the government has been looking through is a different lens from the one the rest of us have been looking through.
In my community of 500,000 people, Hamilton, there was an exposé called “Code Red” in the local paper, which said that 20%, or 100,000 people, live in poverty in that community. That gives us a different lens.
The things I hear the government talking about are things it has acted upon with finances. It says it only accounts for 10%. But it has legislative authority over old age security, GIS and CPP. Will the government not raise the GIS to support seniors living in poverty?