Mr. Speaker, I am very proud that we voted against those measures. The Conservatives did not get the job done for Canadian seniors.
If we pause and think about it for a moment, over the last five to six years there have been repeated conversations in the House about 300,000 seniors living in poverty. Most of those who collected GIS were women. They were getting approximately $15,000 a year when the poverty line was $22,000 a year. Instead of giving them a $200 a month increase that would have helped alleviate that, as was suggested in the last election by the NDP and in the House repeatedly, the government gave them $50. The HST increase in Ontario alone ate up most of that $50.
Therefore, the government should not try to tell members on this side how much it has done for seniors. It has taken $6,000 out of their lifetime income for each of those two years that it has moved forward on changing the age of eligibility from 65 to 67. It is really frustrating on this side of the House because we hear these claims of what it is doing, but it is not getting done.