Madam Speaker, today we are discussing a very interesting and very important topic.
We are touching on two important issues. The first is the situation of our seniors. The second is the state of our public finances, especially when the government is dealing with certain constraints that might limit what it can do with the programs it wants to develop.
In all honestly, I do not think we can accuse the Bloc Québécois of being opportunistic about this. We can accuse the Bloc Québécois of a lot of things. As my colleague from Honoré-Mercier often used to say, we can accuse the Bloc Québécois of picking fights, but in this case, we cannot accuse the Bloc Québécois of being opportunistic. It has been calling for this for quite some time now. It has been consistent about these demands. However, and I will come back to this later, I think we can accuse the Bloc Québécois of improvising a bit on this issue.
As for the member for Shefford, in my opinion, she comes across as truly sincere. Seniors are certainly very important to her. She is a strong advocate for them. She stands up not only for seniors in Quebec, but also for those in Canada as a whole. In fact, she is very supportive of seniors from the rest of Canada. We might wonder if that support could one day lead to support for federalism. Who knows? I remain hopeful.
The first thing I want to point out about the Bloc Québécois's position is that the Bloc knows very well that age 75 was not chosen arbitrarily as the threshold for the OAS increase. It was not picked out of a hat. There is a certain logic behind choosing 75 as the age when the OAS is increased.
There are exceptions, but the situation of people 75 and over differs from that of people under 75. For example, the data show that people 75 and older are more likely to outlive their savings, to be unable to work, to be widowed and to have greater health care needs. One telling statistic is that half of seniors over 75 have a serious disability, 57% are women and four in 10 are widowed. In short, the situation of seniors 75 and over is, as a rule, different from that of seniors under 75. We try to be precise when setting a threshold, but it is tough. There are always exceptions.
The retirement age was set at 65 a long time ago. One might even say that it is a bit of an arbitrary number. Why not 63, 62 or 60? It is hard to be absolutely precise about everyone's situation, but decisions still have to be made.
It is also important to note that old age security is not the only program where the amount of benefits changes with age. Take, for example, the Canada child benefit, which decreases at age six. Obviously, the government decided that this benefit would decrease starting at age six, not at age five or seven. Setting a threshold at which a benefit changes is not unprecedented.
Yes, the OAS could be increased for those under 75. Many programs that are very important to the well-being of Canadians could also be enhanced, such as the Canada child benefit, which I mentioned. It is a program to reduce child poverty. In a world with no budget limits, of course we would always want to do more for everyone.
The Canada disability benefit could also be increased. The maximum has not been reached. The government just introduced this new benefit, and we are working with the provinces to ensure that, if it is enhanced, the provinces will not reduce their investments. We have to be fairly strategic with the provinces, but ultimately, the goal is to provide a much more generous benefit. We could achieve this more quickly and aim for an even higher maximum. This is another program that could be improved.
The child care program could also be improved. Why should child care cost $10 instead of $7, $6 or $5?
Federal health transfers could also be increased. The Bloc Québécois always accuses us of underfunding Canada's health care systems. It blames the federal government for not doing enough. However, a study published two or three weeks ago compared the rate of growth in federal health transfers to the rate of growth in provincial health spending, and it found that federal spending was growing faster than provincial spending on health, so I think we are already doing a lot, but obviously in a world with no limits, we could do more.
The other thing to understand is that seniors have always been the government's priority. Our government has done a lot for seniors. We introduced a dental care program that greatly benefits seniors. I regularly receive emails from seniors thanking our government for introducing this program. We are also going to introduce pharmacare, which will also greatly help seniors.
It is about balance within a limited financial framework.