Madam Speaker, the other question is, what is next?
The government introduced this clandestine policy on May 17 without any information, announcement or dissemination to any investment counsel or seniors organization. There was no effort to actually publicize this. The Government of Canada prides itself on informing Canadians of things they need to know. It spends $120 million a year on advertising. I think this should have been advertised.
Instead of talking about programs that have already expired, such as the home renovation tax credit, and there are still ads running about expired programs and other things, I wonder what would have happened to the government's fortunes if it actually ran a multi-million dollar ad saying, “By the way, seniors, we are clawing back your GIS and stealing from your pensions to pay for fake lakes and other ancillary expenses that we incurred in a multi-million dollar PR exercise”. I do not think Canadian seniors would be very pleased about that and the Conservative Party's fortunes probably would not have been enhanced.
Therefore, we are not seeing any of the government's tax money being spent on advertising fundamentally important changes to the pension system of lower-income Canadian senior citizens. Every year, $120 million is available to do that, spent on other things that the government wants to advertise. However, we will not see this little item advertised ever, because it is a bad news item and the government does not like to talk about what it does behind closed doors.