Madam Speaker, you are so right, but it is also so difficult when we stand in the House and continue to ask questions on serious topics and continue to be ignored or given answers that we know are not accurate, based on what we know.
I am pleased to speak on this very important issue. I will be sharing my time with the absolutely wonderful member for Random—Burin—St. George's, who is a constant fighter on behalf of her constituents and seniors in this country. They and we are fortunate to have her with us.
Here we go again. We are speaking in what I would call a Bill Murray moment. We are again debating a motion on how to stop the government's attack on low-income seniors.
As my party's critic for seniors and pensions, I am pleased to say that we are going to support this motion because we are all here, at least on our team, to support Canadian seniors. We are here to reaffirm a commitment that the Liberal Party of Canada made and will continue to reinforce, that in our goal to form the next government three years from now, we will make sure we maintain the age of retirement at 65.
We have looked into this issue with all seriousness. Everybody knows it is not a financial issue. It is an issue of choice and ideology, which I will speak to further.
The Liberal Party of Canada believes that 65 is an appropriate age. If people want to continue to work until 75 or 80, God bless them all. The government is going to force people to wait an extra two years when many of the people who I see have been in really tough jobs all their lives and can barely make it to 65. The Liberal Party is and will continue to be firmly committed, if given the opportunity by Canadians three years from now, to ensuring that this does not move forward.
What would the motion do? Let us be honest and not mislead anybody who is watching today. We support the motion and we will be working with our NDP colleagues on this issue. If the motion is passed, it will go the same way a lot of things go with the Conservative government. It will go into the nearest trash can, and nothing else will happen.
I do not want to mislead people into thinking we can overturn it. The current government has a majority, and when a government has a majority it does pretty much what it wants. We will stand up and holler and scream and do all the things we are supposed to do, but at the end of the day that is what a majority government is going to do. It will take the Canadian people out there to respond and work with all of us to ensure that does not happen. If Canadians rise up, speak out and vote, that would be helpful for all of us in opposition.
The intent of the motion is to roll back the Prime Minister's attack on the pensions of low-income seniors. It would assure seniors and baby boomers that the view held by the Cons is not shared by all of us. The motion echoes the Liberal call to stop and reverse the government's increase to the age of retirement.
The motion helps to remind Canadians that the Conservatives continue to govern with a mandate they secured under false pretenses. We had an election just over a year ago. This did not come out of the blue. We do not suddenly have some huge financial stress on us, meaning that we have to do this. Twelve months ago there was no mention of this.
In fact, the Prime Minister made a commitment that there would be no change to health care, that health care transfers would stay the same. He said he had no intention of touching pensions. Rather than introducing pension reform in the larger sense, all the government has introduced is PPRPs that would do very little to help people save for retirement.
That is what we should be talking about, the need for serious pension reform in this country, opportunities for people to be able to save. No matter whether they are homemakers, or on low income, people need to be able to save a few dollars. We need to introduce programs that would allow and encourage that. Even with the age being 65, far too many people continue to live in poverty today.
While many of us continue to argue for increases in OAS so that fewer people would be living at the levels of poverty we know many of our constituents are, the government has taken unprecedented and unnecessary steps to make people wait an extra two years. It is absolutely uncalled for. There are no statistics to show it needed to do that.
As my colleague mentioned, in the OECD some of those countries have very rich pensions. Some of them have a 50% or 60% replacement. What do we have in Canada? We are proud of what we have, but it is not enough. It is a 25% replacement. Many of us have been arguing for years to increase that so we do not have as many people living on $15,000 a year.
I asked some on the other side, and they have constituents living on $15,000 a year. It is not just us who have not quite as affluent ridings. Members should stop and think about what it is like to live on $15,000 a year. By the time they pay rent, transportation and medical bills, I often hear from my constituents that they have to choose between getting a prescription filled and buying a quart of milk. Life is tough for a lot of people out there, even though we would like to think that everybody in Canada is rich. They are not, seniors in particular, for a variety of reasons, including the kinds of jobs they had.
Also, people were led to believe, by their own lack of knowledge, that when they got to be 65 there would be a pension there for them. Our system is not a pension. It is a supplement to one's own savings. If we ask most Canadians who are not saving very much money, they think that when they are 65 they will have a pension. In Norway they would have a pension. In many of the other countries they would have a pension. However, we do not have a “pension” in this country because we need serious pension reform.
Notwithstanding the Conservative Party's conviction for election fraud and promising not to cut the pensions of seniors, as I mentioned a moment ago, the Prime Minister misled Canadians and tricked boomers into trusting him with their votes. I can guarantee that all the people I am meeting with will not be tricked the next time. I am sure even Pierre Poutine would be shocked by the dubious nature of this scheme. He is probably right at that age where he will be affected by this change as well.
Canadians have earned these benefits, and by pushing the OAS eligibility age from 65 to 67, the Cons are hurting those Canadians who are the most vulnerable.
What the government is forgetting is that it is not giving people anything. It is rotating their money back to them, which they paid in all of those years. It is their own money they are getting back.
Seniors and baby boomers have worked their entire lives. They have paid their taxes, raised their families and contributed to this nation. Everything that we enjoy every day came from all of them. Now as they grow older they are simply asking the government to fulfill its promise to let them live in dignity. But the Cons say, no, they will have to wait an extra two years because they have not worked hard enough. The government will say the sacrifice it is forcing seniors to bear is for the long-term prosperity of the entire system. However, all the federal government's own reports have determined that the OAS is clearly sustainable. We do not face the pressures that many of the other countries are facing because they have a very lucrative and rich system when it comes to pensions. We do not have any of that. That means the Conservative cuts to OAS are being made as a matter of clear choice. That is what government and governing is all about, choices. It makes the choice where it makes its cuts. It makes the choice as to where it invests taxpayers' money. We can see very clearly where the current government is making its choices as to what it cares about.
The Minister of Finance has said that the budget was about choices. That is one place where I agree with him. The Cons have opted for jets, jails and fancy juices, while the Liberals continue to stand for and with Canadian seniors and baby boomers. As I indicated earlier, three years from now we could very well be into another election. The Liberals have committed and will stay committed that the age of 65 will remain, so people can have a few years for a second career or a bit of a better lifestyle than having to be forced to continue to work. These are ideological cuts by the government and will only increase the pressure, in addition to all the other issues that are being downloaded to the provinces, to force people onto either welfare systems or some sort of subsidy. That is very embarrassing and humiliating for the thousands of Canadians who have worked hard, paid their taxes and were never on welfare or unemployment insurance or anything else. They worked all of those years. When 65 comes, they are planning to retire. Now some of them will be forced to apply to the province for welfare, something that is extremely humiliating for many.
I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to this very important issue. I hope we are able to raise some of these concerns as the day progresses.