Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his kind words, but also for what is an extremely important question.
As baby boomers age, we are going to be facing, as the Canadian Medical Association calls it, a tsunami of seniors, many of whom are not prepared for retirement. As the member pointed out, they may not have pensions. For some of them, income security will be a huge issue if all they have is the OAS and GIS.
Here we go with the regions. In my province of British Columbia, seniors cannot afford to rent anything, because it is so expensive, but in some provinces they can. When we have unequal access to a basic thing like housing across this country, how are people able to manage? That is where the federal government comes in to sit down to talk about it, to try to find a common solution and common ground to help seniors.
We know that poor seniors suffer worse health outcomes. They become sicker and they need the health care system, which has now degenerated. As the Health Council of Canada said to us in March in its last report, we have now been seeing, for the last three years, inequitable access to health services and services for seniors across this country.