We need to move away from the lip service about loving our troops. We should say that after they come home, when they are senior citizens, when they are disabled or if they leave widows, they will be looked after in a fair system in which their money is not clawed back by the government or insurance companies and that they will have what they need. That is the covenant that we must make within the House to veterans, the RCMP and other federal service people who risk their lives for us.
It also reminds us that we need to do better in addressing the pension crisis. Senior citizens are suffering and they are suffering from the indifference of a government that is pushing the HST on them because it wants to shift the tax burden off large corporations and put it on people with fixed incomes. They are suffering because we have a government that has no interest in standing up for the Abitibi or Nortel pensioners because it would rather help the big creditors of the big banks. That is a shame and that is not the great tradition of Canada.
We in the New Democratic Party will continue to fight for pension fairness for veterans, former police officers, firefighters and all senior citizens.