Mr. Speaker, I will make do with three minutes. It is fine.
Today, the Bloc Québécois tabled a simple, sensible, empathetic and caring motion. Logically, this rational, judicious bill should transcend party stances and party lines. This motion targets a particular segment of the population, the only segment that was neglected during this pandemic and has in fact been neglected for decades.
To sum up, the motion “asks the government, in the next budget, to increase the Old Age Security benefit by $110 a month for those aged 65 and more”.
We have heard a lot about how underfunding is affecting seniors. I would like to take a moment to look at what this means in concrete terms. The $110 a month adds up to $8 billion, but some of that gross amount will be returned to the government in the form of taxes. People who earn more than $80,000 per year pay a lot of tax. Some who currently get the guaranteed income supplement will no longer get it. Essentially, that $8 billion ends up as $4 billion net. That is what the Bloc Québécois's motion would actually cost.
A mere $4 billion for our seniors, hitherto neglected by the government, is not much compared to the flood of subsidies and cash the government has been handing out over the past year. Four billion dollars is a drop in the bucket compared to $400 billion. It is also very little compared to numbers like the one that came out today, Irving Shipbuilding's $57-billion cost overrun. That is a single cost overrun totalling $57 billion, when the Bloc is asking for a mere $4 billion. Our seniors deserve that much.
Given that I do not have much time, I would like to conclude by stating that the Bloc Québécois motion calls for good judgment, consideration of the priorities that we want to have as a society, and respect for these people who today can no longer express their discontent or articulate their needs, much less take to the streets to express what they want.
Today, the Bloc Québécois is the voice of seniors. Today, the Bloc Québécois stands on behalf of seniors. I will leave my colleagues with these three words to guide our vote on this motion: judgment, priorities and respect.