Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague who spoke before me, and I am extremely disappointed. He is talking about a little detail that may be important in future: an administrative expense.
By pushing back the age of retirement, the government decided this week to cut the funds allocated to the guaranteed income supplement, old age security and the Canada pension plan by $10.8 billion. Ten billion, eight hundred million dollars. It did not ask itself a lot of questions about the administrative problems this might cause for the people who would not be receiving that money.
Last year, the government refused to help the Nortel and AbitibiBowater employees and the employees of several other companies who lost their pension funds. That is another little administrative problem. It is called being able to make ends meet at the end of the month. Unfortunately, those people cannot do that, because this government decided again that this little administrative problem was too important for them.
Bill C-326 is merely a small gesture, a little administrative reform, one that is technical, if not cosmetic. It is simply a matter of arranging for benefits to be paid every two weeks. We are not asking for a miracle. We simply want Canada pension plan payments to be made twice a month. This is simply to give recipients some financial flexibility in their day-to-day budgeting.
This request has been made by numerous retirees. It is a matter of replying to a very simple request. People do not want to find themselves constantly in busy pharmacies all at the same time and tripping over one another at the bank. They want there to be a little rotation. There is nothing difficult or extraordinarily costly about this.
I would have liked these people who are quick to make budget cuts to think at least once, just once, about the people who need a favour.
It is not so extraordinary to ask for this gesture after everything the government has taken away from them. After everything it has taken away, the least it could have done would have been to agree to this little reform. It adds nothing to the cheques. Poor people will still be just as poor, but they could manage their grocery and drug purchases better. This is not an extraordinary request, but the government has refused it.