Status of Women committee  The question of retroactivity, as you can appreciate, is very complex. We require people to apply for these benefits because there are many conditions of application, so that's really important for us to have. We try to put all our efforts into making sure people are aware of the benefits and are receiving those benefits on a timely basis.

Status of Women committee  Essentially, across this country it has been accepted that social benefits have an 11-month period of retroactivity. You have cited the case of the Quebec Pension Plan, which provides five years of retroactivity; that's really the exception to the rule. Even in Quebec, for example, many social benefits have no retroactivity at all.

Status of Women committee  In fact, I really won't be able to comment on this. This matter has been put in front of the Supreme Court. It was recently heard--a few weeks ago. So the court will have to pronounce on the extent to which they wish to go back further.

Status of Women committee  You asked a good question about whether we will be able to deal with the demand over the long term. Nothing pleases me more than to sit in front of a committee and say that the government has a chief actuary who, every three years, evaluates the sustainability of the Canada Pension Plan for 75 years, which is as far as he goes.

Status of Women committee  I won't really be able to comment on the splitting of income--that's not really our purview--but I can tell you that under our programs good things are happening. We have a pension sharing provision under the Canada Pension Plan, which Madam Scotti mentioned, which does allow just that, an equal distribution of CPP credits across spouses or common-law partners.

Status of Women committee  Honestly, we don't receive tons of mail on it, and the reason is, as I mentioned earlier, in terms of earned income, people over 65 getting GIS are generally not working at all. So we don't see a lot of instances of that, and I think, as we also mentioned earlier, the plan already has built into it the $500 earnings exemption for GIS recipients.

Status of Women committee  I said we can mention it. Recommending things to provinces is out of my purview.

Status of Women committee  My colleagues tell me I should try to answer. Of course, it's impossible to know people who are eligible. But if you ask for a figure, what we did was to use a combination of Statistics Canada data, which tell us how many seniors Statistics Canada thinks are in the country, as well as our own administrative data on old age security, as well as tax data.

Status of Women committee  I come back to the point that those figures were prior to the data sharing we had in place with the revenue organization. It was a parliamentary committee, in fact, that pushed the government at that time to do those things. And they've been done.

Status of Women committee  I won't predict, but perhaps I'll underscore how the CPP is a good tool when it comes to this type of question. It's a mandatory scheme and it covers people up to the average wage in Canada, which is $42,000 right now. As women's labour participation has gone up, the system has been maturing.

Status of Women committee  It's a good question. Unfortunately, it's a provincial responsibility; the provinces regulate long-term care facilities, so it's not something that we particularly would be able to do much about. I'm interested in it. I haven't heard it before, so it's something we can raise with our provincial counterparts.

Status of Women committee  We can provide the committee...I have a little chart in front of me that we distribute to the public that I think you'll find helpful. Anybody who is interested in it can get it. If you're a single person, the current lines right now for the guaranteed income supplement are $14,256.

Status of Women committee  I'll leave you my copy of the chart. And I can assure you we work with MPs and their offices and your staff every year to try to give you the materials you need. I read the letters from MPs and your constituents, and anything you can do to help reduce the number of letters I get would be welcome.

Status of Women committee  I wish I knew the answer to that question in the same detail you'd like to have. I can't express strongly enough how much effort the government goes to, to reach all these people. Having MPs in the room, I will use this opportunity to ask you to help as well. We try to work with MPs and anybody else we can find to do this.

Status of Women committee  Merci. In that regard, every country comes to a different position as to how much they should replace after a person retires. The standard around the world is that about 70% of pre-retirement earnings should be enough to live on in post-retirement. Canada's public pension system itself covers off about 40% and private pensions, RRSPs, and other elements of our system cover off the remaining 30%.