Mr. Speaker, when the member says “reverse income splitting for seniors”, he should know that most seniors will not derive any benefit from the income splitting that is being proposed by this plan.
He should not try to give that impression. How are single seniors living on their own going to benefit? They are not. The vast majority of seniors will not benefit from this program.
If the government wants seniors to benefit from something, it should deal with issues such as the cost of medication and health care, to which I made reference. The government did not renew the health care accord. Health care is important to our seniors.
If the minister wants to do something that would benefit our seniors, this income split is not going to benefit the vast majority of seniors. The price of medications should be dealt with, or looking at how to renew the health care accord. Those would have been better measures.
The reason we have the unheard of contributions toward health care today is not because of the government. Those record-high donations of federal dollars going to provinces are not because of the Conservative government; they are because of Paul Martin. It is the health care accord that instituted that. That is the reason that we have the health care we have today.