Mr. Speaker, I thank the NDP member for his question, because anything that has to do with poverty among seniors is unacceptable. It is unacceptable that today, given the income levels of seniors, they are not able to index their guaranteed income supplement benefits, which would bring their income up to an acceptable level. Indexing the benefits and making the guaranteed income supplement retroactive could help them.
The member also spoke about the cost of such a measure. Although the measure is not very expensive, in examining this bill, we discovered that it would not be retroactive, and that some soldiers would be excluded. We would like soldiers to be included in this bill. We cannot put a price on soldiers.