Madam Speaker, that is an interesting question.
I would like to address two things.
Some say that the GIS is welfare for seniors. Personally, I do not like that, but it is a fact. Increasing the GIS helps only a few people. Those are not my words. Experts at the conference said that. We can make numbers say what we want, but there are some people who are just above the poverty line, who are not entitled to the GIS and who are not entitled to the 10% increase in OAS either because they are 67. The thing is, illness does not wait until 75, poverty does not wait until 75 and grocery bills cost the same whether we are 67 or 77.
As I explained, we voted against this because of the demands we made of the government in the budgets. We are not against the guaranteed income supplement. We can give it more thought later, but for now the main problem is that there is a disparity in the base amount of the program.
I invite the government to review this because unlike other programs the government tries to meddle in, OAS is its responsibility. It is one of the rare programs that is the federal government's responsibility. It is in charge of pensions, which fall under its jurisdiction.