Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to ask my colleague a question about this important bill. However, I am disappointed that the government voted against Bill C-245 introduced by my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. Her bill proposed bringing in a national anti-poverty strategy and was far better than the government's.
When we were debating my colleague's bill, the government said it was not good enough and that it would do better. Now we have a bill in front of us that is less ambitious than my colleague's, including when it comes to the proposed method for measuring the extent of the problem. The government has decided to use the market basket measure. Under the old method of measuring poverty, there were 828,000 seniors living in poverty in 2016, while the new method indicates that there are 284,000 seniors living in poverty. This new calculation tells us that 600,000 seniors no longer live in poverty when in reality, they still do on a daily basis.
Why did my colleague decide to use the less ambitious method for measuring poverty in Canada?