Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hamilton East—Stoney Creek for raising that issue, because it points to another important issue around how we support seniors, elderly folks who are refugee claimants in Canada. There is a problem with the kind of support they receive collectively from our community, from our pension system. Often, because they are not deemed to be eligible for old age security or the guaranteed income supplement, they live in a situation of deep poverty.
This is clearly something I do not think is acceptable to Canadians. They believe that people who have made a successful refugee claim in Canada should be supported so they can integrate into Canadian society and live a decent life. When those people happen to be senior citizens, that is even more difficult for them, since their work prospects are probably even more limited than other refugee claimants. We need to ensure that the support system, the pension and old age security systems, applies to those people as well.
This is very controversial and governments in the past have not been as clear as they could have been to explain how our pension system works, the cost of our pension system, how it works to support new immigrants and refugees in Canada. This could use the attention of governments. I am glad my colleague suggested to the minister that it be something the government take up.