Human Resources committee  Your first question was a bit of a two-part question. It was whether we do everything we can to reach immigrant communities that may not speak English or French. The answer is yes, we do, through our outreach efforts again. My colleague in Service Canada can probably answer wheth

Human Resources committee  They created an unintended differential treatment. They intended to cover everybody in the same way, so that whether you were a permanent resident or a Canadian citizen, you would not be eligible for income-tested benefits during the period of your sponsorship. As a result of th

Human Resources committee  It will not affect people who are currently receiving the benefit. It will be prospective, so it will apply to the future. It will not go back.

Human Resources committee  Yes, most definitely. In the event of the breakdown of the sponsorship for whatever reason, whether the sponsor has financial difficulties or dies or is imprisoned or whatever, then in those cases of sponsorship breakdown the individual would be eligible for the benefits.

Human Resources committee  In some cases, it's more advantageous for the senior to wait...

Human Resources committee  I think we've already answered that question in part. I'm nevertheless going to try to answer it, but in English. I don't know about the numbers. We'd have to go back and look at the numbers base. But the essential point here is that we go to extreme efforts to try to reach a

Human Resources committee  We're trying to reach all the people—

Human Resources committee  I'm going to answer in English. It's a little easier for me. The circumstances of the individual might be such that they might not have considered that when they apply right now, they can't withdraw their application if the application has been processed and they're already in p

Human Resources committee  On the comparison on retroactivity, in essence, most other countries do not have any retroactivity provisions whatsoever, so in that respect, Canada is much more generous than other countries in having the limited retroactivity of a one-year period. If I look at Australia, New Ze

Human Resources committee  I will introduce a response and turn the question over to Marla Israel, who actually negotiates the international agreements for us. From a contextual perspective, the agreements we have in place are with countries that have fully functioning public pension systems in place that

Human Resources committee  Did seniors lead this charge for change? Yes, in part. We receive letters. Our offices across the country through Service Canada also have a lot of interaction with recipients and potential beneficiaries and we get a lot of feedback from our clients. Also, parliamentary committee

Human Resources committee  I'm sorry, we weren't fast enough in answering your question.

Human Resources committee  I am sorry, what would seniors say if this—

Human Resources committee  Seniors would be disappointed, yes. Certainly any reduction in administrative red tape and complexity is certainly welcomed by seniors and seniors organizations. A number of these amendments, the improvements to the GIS in particular, are extremely important to seniors and senior

Human Resources committee  I'll have my colleague from the Department of Finance explain it.