Mr. Speaker, earlier this afternoon, I was thinking about how to approach this issue, and it occurred to me that perhaps the best way was to start with a story. I hope members will see where I am going with it.
People refer to themselves as their father's child. I am my grandmother's child. I was raised by my grandmother. She played a rather important role in my life. I can say that I am the youngest pensioner in Canada. I received my pension at the age of 14, when my grandmother received her old age security at the age of 65. I was 14 and I told my friends that I did not need to get a job, I did not need to mow lawns because I had my grandmother.
The reason I am telling this story is that seniors are the ones who generally teach us the values that will be important to us. Our parents do this, but so do our grandparents. My grandmother instilled in me values that I hold to this day. Generosity is definitely one of them, and so is the sharing of wealth.
How can we impart these values of generosity and sharing of wealth in political life? Many years later, I understood that perhaps it could be done through social programs. That was part of what I did as a teacher. I gave social workers a course entitled “Social Policy and Citizenship”, and I saw the re-emergence of the same type of generosity and sharing of wealth that my grandmother had taught me. I rediscovered them in, among other things, the policies that I implemented in the Government of Quebec. What comes to mind immediately is Quebec's family policy, which is very generous.
With regard to social policies, the unfortunate thing, perhaps, is that old age security and the guaranteed income supplement are a federal responsibility.
There is no denying that I am sovereignist and I am critical of the government, but I get the impression that successive federal governments are a bit cheap. As the adage goes, you can tell how important equality is to a government by the way it treats the most vulnerable.
If we look at that adage today, we might say that this government has a lot of work to do when it comes to equality. I say that because when we look more closely at the basic income seniors receive, those who receive only the guaranteed income supplement and the old age security pension are just a few dollars away from the poverty line.
I cannot understand how we can be collectively okay with that in an advanced society. The values that my grandmother instilled in me are such that I think this is an aberration and if we take our work as parliamentarians seriously, it is something we should address. I say that by way of an introduction knowing full well that there is a rather simple solution.
What we are proposing today through this motion, and what we have been wanting for some time now is an increase of $110 a month for the OAS. The guaranteed income supplement, or the GIS, would increase by $50 for single individuals and $70 for couples. I do not think that is too much to ask. What is so daunting in the government's eyes about this proposal? I was wondering earlier why they would not accept this proposal. Is it because it comes from the Bloc Québécois? It would be petty of me to say that.
Furthermore, I see the situation we are in and the crisis we have come through, and I must say that there have been some startling goings-on in this Parliament. During the crisis, there was the $900-million WE Charity scandal. Is that what we call helping the most vulnerable? I do not believe so. Then there are the political parties—I have a Conservative friend who is nodding, and I thank him for that, but he may well stop after he hears what I am about to say. There are political parties that saw fit to dip into the Canada emergency wage subsidy program, and they have yet to repay those benefits.
There must be some disillusioned seniors watching this. What kind of logic is there in refusing to increase the old age security and guaranteed income supplement payments? I really do not understand. I am eager to hear my Liberal colleagues' questions on this matter.
In the debate on seniors, there is the whole issue of a livable income, but for me there is also another very important aspect, and that is health care.
There is a storm coming, and every region, not just Quebec, will have to face it. The population is aging across Quebec. Canadian society is aging. An aging population means a health care system under pressure. If the current crisis has taught us one thing, it is that we are not prepared. Quebec has a ways to go. We saw how some things were not up to par in long-term care homes, and that is putting it kindly.
I want to figure out with my fellow members of this House why some things were not up to par. I believe it has to do with health care funding. Health care funding in Canada is an absolute train wreck. I want to point out that fiscal imbalance is a defining characteristic of health care funding. The Séguin report was tabled by a Liberal minister, not a PQ minister. Yves Séguin was a Liberal minister. In the report he submitted to the National Assembly, he demonstrated that the Canadian federation is broken.
The Canadian federation is broken because the federal government keeps bringing in more than it spends. During a crisis, the federal government usually balances its books at the expense of provinces by lowering their transfer payments. This has happened twice, most notably in the early 1990s under the Mulroney government. Canada was in a precarious position and Mr. Mulroney slashed health and education transfers. In doing so, he managed to balance his budget, more or less.
However, the world champion in every respect, the man who pioneered what some analysts call Canadian neoliberalism, is Paul Martin. Year after year, Paul Martin said that he was going to draft his budget in black and not red. He pulled surpluses out of his hat. I remember that. My whole life is based on what happened after the 1995 referendum. Immediately after the referendum, in 1995-96 and 1996-97, Paul Martin cut health transfers by about $2 billion. That is huge.
That decision completely tore apart the Quebec health care system. Today, the crisis we are going through is partly due to the cuts to health transfer payments in 1996-97 and 1997-98. It made taking care of seniors more difficult, and we are still feeling the effects of that today.
If we wish to directly improve the quality of life of seniors, we must increase the health transfer payments. I will conclude with that. The House leader repeated several times that seniors are not an area of jurisdiction. I heard him say that many times. It is quite convenient for him to use those words to evade his responsibility. In the years to come, there will be pressures on the public purse. I am sure that Conservatives and Liberals will be tempted, once again, to solve their deficit problems by reducing transfer payments to the provinces. However, the best thing they can do, if they care about seniors at all, is to listen to the Government of Quebec and increase health transfers so as to cover 35% of expenditures.