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Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
2021-01-27 18:15 [p.3652]

Madam Speaker, I am thankful for this opportunity.

I will start by acknowledging that I am speaking from the traditional territory of the WSÁNEC first nation, the indigenous people of the territory that I am honoured to represent in Parliament.

Today, we are addressing Bill C-14, which, of course, includes the legislative changes that are required as part of the fall economic statement that was tabled November 30. Although our commentary today should be limited to the legislative changes before us, and I know that some of speeches have been quite wide-ranging, I want to reflect briefly on the fall economic statement itself, then turn to the legislation before us, and then to the things that are missing from it and that we wish were there.

The fall economic statement, at over 200 pages, is definitely wide-ranging. It references a lot of hard work, and I want to acknowledge the hard work of our Minister of Finance, indeed, the government as a whole, with a good dose of gratitude.

There is no perfection to be found in the actions of any government around the world in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some do better than others, and some do worse than others. I think we do better as Canadians when we try to work together.

That is the intent of Greens, whether we are elected federally or in the provinces across this country. We prefer collaborative efforts, co-operation and working through consensus. However, in looking at this document, it is extraordinary in detailing ambition around a wide range of issues.

First, on the question of a safe restart, there was about $20 billion put into a safe restart. We know that this was transferring money to the provinces for things as important as personal protective equipment, PPE, and getting the vaccines rolled out, which is a subject we debated until midnight last night with a lot of emotion and different opinions, but we have vaccines. We wish that they were being rolled out more quickly, but it does take federal-provincial co-operation. It also takes dealing with global multinational pharmaceutical companies. We are also looking at day care, so for the safe restart and a number of other aspects, there was $20 billion.

There are priorities in the fall economic statement that are not COVID-related but are high-priority items for Greens, particularly working towards indigenous reconciliation and moving towards pharmacare. I do not know why it is taking so long, but pharmacare is flagged in the fall economic statement.

Specifically, we should start looking at pharmacare in relation to rare diseases. I am part of a caucus, quite an informal caucus, with members of Parliament from every single party in this place, and that is a great place for collaboration. We are working with the CF Foundation and trying to get the life-saving drug Trikafta to patients in the CF community. We work together, and I think we are better when we do so.

On the opioid crisis, again, referenced in the fall economic statement, Greens favour decriminalization. We need to move fast to stop the deaths from opioid addiction, which is an extension of a mental health issue. It is a health issue. It is not a criminal issue.

On climate, which is also referenced in the fall economic statement, Greens are very keen on improving our east-west electricity grid and also improving its potential to reach north. We applaud the focus on interties that we have begun to see out of the Canadian Infrastructure Bank. However, we need more. We need more work on the electricity grid. We need more work on public transit, but it is flagged, as is the importance of electric vehicles.

Many climate-related measures are in the fall economic statement, including nature-based climate solutions. On the commitment to planting two billion trees, which we have heard of many times and look forward to seeing, it is critical that they are trees appropriate to the ecosystems in which they are planted. It is critical that we do the tree planting in ways that enhance carbon sequestration and protect biodiversity, such as along stream banks to help protect our wild Pacific salmon where they have lost so much habitat.

These are measures we support, but they are not enough. We have seen Bill C-12, and they are referenced in the fall economic statement for climate accountability, but without major strengthening, such as a fixed dark target date of 2025 for carbon reductions, it will not be worth supporting.

When we look south of the border we see the steps the new Biden administration is taking, pursuing some of the courses Barack Obama left in place. This is also encouraging. Canada has scope, as is mentioned in the fall economic statement. With carbon and border adjustments, we can move our economies in the same direction and create more jobs while doing so. These are encouraging things.

We support Bill C-14 as far as it goes. The measures are important in order to get more COVID assistance to people to get more relief.

What is missing? There are many sectors that are not just falling through the cracks, but plummeting through a chasm. They need more help. I refer specifically to all the businesses in the tourism sector, particularly restaurants, but also bus services.

The fall economic statement refers to the highly affected sectors having more credit availability, but it is capped at $1 million per piece of assistance. I will specifically mention Wilson’s bus lines, which provides not only charter service but also regularly scheduled service into first nation communities. It is an integral part of our tourism ecosystem here. It is being pressured out of existence by the commercial banks. The banks are demanding repayment. The $1-million capped loan will not be enough to save Wilson’s.

For other parts of our transportation infrastructure, such as regional airports, $1 million in loans is not going to help them. We need to focus on what is needed to save all of our transportation infrastructure that is at risk right now. I think the best way to do that would be for the Minister of Finance or the Prime Minister to talk to all the CEOs of the big commercial banks and remind them they are making profits every quarter.

This is the most recent news. If we just scan the headlines of BNN Bloomberg, we see the new quarter, post-2020 into 2021, news. It is a kick off of big bank earnings. They are doing great. They have adjusted fourth-quarter profits above the average analyst estimates. When the banks are doing well, maybe not as well as before the pandemic, but they are not struggling or about to go under, they need to help.

Similarly, we should not be leaning on Canadians who got the CERB in good faith because they thought they made $5,000 in the previous year. The qualifications to say they did not qualify came out later. Come on. Let us fix it in this bill to say that anyone who received CERB who received $5,000 gross income in 2019 is entitled. That would clear up a misunderstanding and remove the cloud over the heads of over 440,000 Canadians who received, and I think this is an Orwellian turn of phrase, an education letter.

The critical issue of long-term care homes is referenced quite a lot in the fall economic statement. It mentions long-term care home workers. One of the more disturbing stories I saw in the last few months was of an outbreak of COVID in an Ottawa shelter for the homeless. It turned out the homeless who were living there were actually workers in long-term care. They were earning so little as long-term care workers, they were living in the Ottawa homeless shelter because they could not afford a roof over their head.

We need to do much more. We need to get into those long-term care homes and make sure our seniors are vaccinated. We need to stop the senicide. We need to make sure we pay our workers adequately, whether they are front-line workers in long-term care or anywhere in our society. We really do need a guaranteed livable income to ensure equity and decency for every single Canadian.

This is just a quick scratching of the surface of what we see as a challenge to us as Canadians. The fall economic statement gives us a good direction, but it needs to be more ambitious. We need to ensure that as we come out of COVID we repair our social safety net so it is not a net full of holes, but an actual place of stability, decency and respect for every single one of our human beings in this society, whether homeless, indigenous, or a woman who cannot figure out how to go back to work. We need to rebuild. We need a society that lives up to our greatest aspirations, including acting on the climate emergency while we still have time.

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Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
2020-05-12 13:34

I confess that I was disappointed by this morning’s announcement on support for seniors. I had been hoping for much more, because I hear from many seniors.
I’m going to focus my question for the minister on the issue of seniors homes. Some that are being run by not-for-profit societies are actually running very well, certainly in my community, but they are facing increased costs that could bankrupt them. As yet, there’s no program to help a well-run seniors home that is not experiencing a loss of revenue and has lots of staff working hard. These homes have increased costs for wages and increased costs for PPE and nowhere to look for help.
Is there help coming?

Hon. Patty Hajdu (Thunder Bay—Superior North)
2020-05-12 13:35

I offer my gratitude to the many people who are working in these long-term care facilities day and night to keep seniors safe.
The member certainly highlighted that there are not only additional expenses for some of the not-for-profit seniors homes, but also additional new measures that will increase all kinds of things, including costs.

We continue to work with the provinces and territories and support them through, for example, generous transfers of money to boost their health care systems in ways that they think are most appropriate. We continue to have conversations at the health ministers’ table on how we can support them.

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Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
2020-04-29 14:05

Thank you.

Turning to the crisis for our seniors, I really want to commend the government. I can see that we’ve been moving, step by step, dealing with the crisis that hit Canadians. A lot of people are still being left behind. In the spirit of pushing for more, I want to know when we are going to help our seniors. They are watching their retirement savings shrink. They are wondering when it is their turn to see some help.

Hon. Mona Fortier (Ottawa—Vanier)
2020-04-29 14:05

Mr. Chair, I thank my honourable colleague for her question.
As we’ve been discussing, since the beginning we’ve been supporting seniors with helping them to get access to their GIS and OAS, and we will continue to do that. We have also invested to make sure they get access to services at their homes or access to more food. We will continue to work with seniors as we go along in this crisis.

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Yet, seniors in Canada are more vital and active than at any time in our history.  The most important issue for seniors is independence. This covers a range of policy issues.

On public transit, we know we need to enhance public transportation to meet seniors’ needs. It becomes a key aspect of on-going independence and health to be able to access key services by bus or rail.

We need to look at how most effectively to maintain the ability of seniors to live at home for as long as they choose and to ensure that there are good options available when they choose to move out. Further, we cannot continue to ignore the suffering of well-informed adults who wish to make a choice to die with dignity in their own country. We need an honest, inclusive, national discussion about our aging population. Perhaps most urgent is national pension reform. We cannot afford to keep on stalling.

Canada’s 14^th place ranking in the 2014 Global Retirement Index is certainly a good sign. Even better, Canada’s ranks 8^th in the Finances in Retirement sub-index. However, these impressive numbers belie the precariousness of the situation. What our high standing does not reflect is that the safety net that has allowed this current generation of retirees to live out the rest of their lives with dignity and security is being quietly undermined. If we do not reform the system, this could be the last generation of retirees with stable pensions.

It used to be that retirees could depend upon a three legged stool: the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), the Old Age Security Pension (OAS), and workplace pension. Workplace pensions were the first to go. Only 24% of the current private sector labour force contributes to employer based pension plans. The younger generation simply does not have the option. Thankfully, the public sector still has solid pensions. To solve this inequity, the Harper strategy has been to claw back public sector benefits until equality is reached  — that is, equality at the bottom..

Though we are certainly experiencing a demographic shift in Canada as boomers age, there is no basis for the cries of the doomsayers who would have the Canadian workforce moving from the labour market to hospital beds in one fell swoop. The story that Canada will experience catastrophic labour shortages and have no one left to support public pension plans is not supported by evidence. (At the same time, we are somehow experiencing an epidemic of youth unemployment.) The evidence suggests that our economy need not collapse in one arthritic gasp. In fact, we can assume that the GDP will continue to grow, buoyed by immigration (not temporary workers) and by less labour intensive economic activity. For a Prime Minister who has suggested that his legacy could be “re-orienting economic immigration,” we would expect these solutions to be obvious. In this possibility for a newly invigorated economy, retirees need not be seen simply as an economic drain.

The best bet for ensuring that retirees continue to live in security and dignity is an enhanced CPP. If our three legged stool is missing a leg, we need to bolster the strongest leg. A robust CPP is the most sustainable and reliable option to keep seniors out of poverty and to allow them to retain their purchasing power as they age. In a nation with a savings problem, the enhancement of the CPP which is essentially a required savings plan, only makes sense.

At Davos 2012, the Prime Minister surprised the country (and his caucus) with the announcement of changes to access to old age security.  Without consultation or a word in the 2011 election, the 2012 budget raised the age at which Canadians qualify for OAS to 67. This was not the reform that Canada needed.  Experience shows that a good percentage of people over 65 are not able to keep working due to health issues.

At the annual December 2013 meeting of Federal, Provincial and Territorial Ministers of Finance, most provinces, led by PEI, were preparing to move ahead with assessing a series of phased in proposals to enhance the CPP, which over some 40 years, would increase the maximum CPP payable beyond the current 25% of the national industrial wage.  Under consideration was an increase in the Years Maximum Pensionable Earnings (YMPE, which is equivalent to the average industrial wage) subject to CPP contributions from $52,500 in 2014 to something closer to international standards, which would be close to $110,000.  (For comparison, the USA’s Social Security System assesses premiums of 12.4% on incomes up to $117,000.)  In addition to increasing the YMPE, the co-operating provinces were considering an increase in the income replacement ratio of 25% of the YMPE to something more reasonable like 35% or 40%.

This newfound cooperation among the provinces was met with a blunt rejection by the federal government. Provinces are now looking at ways to fill the void that the federal Conservatives have opened. The Ontario government, for example, has seen the necessity to go it alone with plans to develop an Ontario Retirement Security Plan. Inconceivably, Harper has been trying to stand in the way of this, too.  The best option for seniors and for the Canadian economy is a national, public, shared program with defined benefits without restrictions on labour mobility. That said, if the Harper Conservatives will not help seniors maintain independence, the least they can do is not interfere.

Originally printed in the Hill Times.

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“Old age is not for sissies,” said Bette Davis. Indeed, it is not, but the images from our childhood of what it meant to be “old” have changed dramatically. Of course, as I enter my 60th year, my perspective on what it means to be “old,” of necessity, shifts. As another popular aphorism, puts it “the hardest thing to decide is when middle age begins.” Thanks to advances in health care and a focus on healthy living, Canadians are living longer. And today’s senior has different issues and challenges than in our grandparents’ day. I see it every day, as my riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands is one of those with the highest proportion of older citizens. While so much in the mass media sees only the negatives of this aging demographic, there is much to celebrate.

The group Moses Znaimer calls “zoomers” are not abandoning their love of tennis or skiing. The aging population is increasingly embracing the benefits of staying involved, especially as they give back to community through the donations of thousands of hours of volunteer work.

That is, of course, not to deny the challenges. Today’s seniors want to know that pension and retirement savings are adequate to maintain an active lifestyle. The Green Party supports expansion of the Canada Pension Plan. CPP is sustainable and reliable. It is time to review whether RRSP is working as a vehicle. Evidence suggests its uptake is very limited, it has a large impact on government revenues and yet it seems to benefit primarily those Canadians who least need it.

Staying active is challenging in a car dominated culture. An aging population increases the need for convenient, accessible, mass transit. As it becomes less safe to drive at night, seniors want access to public transit.

The most extreme challenges of aging are experienced by seniors living in poverty, a disproportionate proportion of whom are women. While the percentage of seniors living in poverty dropped dramatically from a high of approximately 30 per cent in 1976, to a low of 4.7 per cent in 2007, the poverty rates for seniors have begun to move up once again5.8 per cent in 2008. We cannot be complacent about the economic struggles of our seniors.

Meanwhile, the widely-repeated claim that the growth in aging Canadians as a proportion of our population will drive up health-care costs is not supported by the evidence. Empirical evidence suggests that the aging population is not a major cause of increased costs. According to the Canadian Institute of Health Information: “Analyses of the drivers of increases in public sector health expenditures over the last decade showed that the contribution of aging has been relatively modest. To date, system-level cost drivers such as inflation and increased utilization have played bigger roles in health spending increases,” according to Health Care Cost Drivers: the facts, CIHI, November 2011.

The largest single driver for increased health-care costs is the rising cost of pharmaceutical drugs. We are all too often seeing evidence of over-prescription of drugs, and registration of drugs that actually will harm more people than they help. While seniors are wrongly seen as the reason for increasing health-care costs, the reality is that seniors are particularly vulnerable to the excess use of prescription drugs.

That is not to say that our health-care system is ready for an increase in the diseases of aging, particularly dementia and Alzheimer’s. We need to significantly improve supports for family members. So often a senior becomes the full-time caregiver for their spouse. Particularly, seniors of limited means lose any potential for enjoying life as they sacrifice for their partner. Better respite programs, better supports for home care, as well as more beds in long-term senior care facilities are needed, with supports from both federal and provincial governments.

We also need to have a conversation about the loss of basic rights experienced by seniors in care. One of the most shocking trends that I have uncovered since becoming an MP is the loss of basic human rights for seniors in residential care. Shockingly, I have heard dozens of stories of seniors being denied access to family members, being placed on drugs they do not want, and even being denied the right to go home to family members who would welcome them.

And lastly, we need to grasp the nettle of the thorny ethical problem of assisted suicide and the right to die with dignity. The solutions will not be simple because the problems are complex. Nevertheless, Canadians are demanding better answers. We need to engage in a respectful, informed discussion starting with a review of the various legal regimes in use around the world. We need to ensure that discussion is grounded in bioethics and premised on an acute awareness of the slippery slope of creating the impression that some human lives are worth more than others. What we must not do is to continue to ignore the suffering of well-informed, adult Canadians who wish to make a choice to die with dignity in their own country.

Originally printed in the Hill Times.

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While in general we are living longer, there are worrying developments. Particularly disturbing is the numbers of illnesses and syndromes that afflict our children. If we were an animal species, looking at issues of population health, we would notice and worry that our young do not haveon a population basisthe state of health of earlier generations. Some have noted that the trend toward every generation being healthier than their parents is about to abruptly end. Industrialized countries have seen a rise in children’s cancer. One in five Canadian children has asthma. There is an epidemic of obesity in children. Rates of diabetes in our children have also gone up. And the rate of attention deficit disorder, autism, and mental retardation are on the rise.

Meanwhile, we are told the cost of health care will be driven up by the aging population. It turns out, that claim lacks empirical support. According to the Canadian Institute of Health Information:

“Analyses of the drivers of increases in public sector health expenditures over the last decade showed that the contribution of aging has been relatively modest. To date, system-level cost drivers such as inflation and increased utilization have played bigger roles in health spending increases.,” (Health Care Cost Drivers: the facts, CIHI, November 2011)

So what is driving up the costs of our health-care system?

Skyrocketing costs for pharmaceutical drugs have now eclipsed all other health care expenditures. Drugs are the fastest rising component in health-care costs. Pharmaceutical companies claim that the high pricesmany times more than the actual cost of manufacturing the drugare necessary to recover their investment in research and development. Recent studies from around the world have debunked this claim. (Light, et al, “Will lower drug prices jeopardize drug research: a policy fact sheet,” American Journal of Bioethics, 2004.)

The high mark-up on prescription drugs simply cannot be justified based on the investment in research. We are being ripped off by Big Pharma. But we may also be suffering more harm than benefit. The world-renowned Therapeutics Initiative at University of British Columbia operates as the Gold Standard of pharmaceutical reviews. It spotted problems with Vioxx, even as Health Canada approved the drug.

Its review of the data package from the manufacturers has saved B.C. lives and tens of thousands of dollars. One aspect of Therapeutics Initiative that makes it nearly unique is that it refuses any perks from the pharmaceutical industry. As I learned when visiting their centre at UBC, for every doctor in Canada, there are three drug salesmen, and there are many offers of conferences in exotic locations to better acquaint doctors with the prescription drugs on offer.

Meanwhile, the traditional way that governments deal with health-care, throwing more money to the provinces, is not achieving concrete results. The 2004 First Ministers Health Accord committed $41-billion to health care system improvements, including $5.5-billion over 10 years to reduce wait times. Benchmarks were established in December 2005 in five key health-care areas that have been prone to longer waiting times. So far, progress is mixed, even though reducing wait times was one of only five promises made by Stephen Harper in the 2006 campaign. That Health Accord is due to expire in 2014.

To get a handle on rising health-care costs, we should focus on drug costs, but we shouldn’t stop there. Here is a short list of where we should look:

1. Improving the bed to bureaucrat ratio (more beds; fewer bureaucrats). Special effort should be made to expand availability of lower cost long-term care and recuperation beds, leaving high-cost post-op beds available for people who really need them.
2. Creating a national pharmacare program with bulk buying of drugs at the federal level to provide at lower cost to provinces. Support the University of British Columbia Therapeutics Initiative and expand its approach to ensuring drugs are only registered if they do more good than harm, across Canada.
3. Focus on efficient use of resources. Not every patient needs every diagnostic test. This bioethics discussion has been growing in the medical literature. Avoiding waste is a sensible approach, but can be difficult to implement, (“From an Ethics of Rationing to an Ethics of Waste Avoidance,” New England Journal of Medicine, May 24, 2012).
4. Provide student loan forgiveness incentives for graduating doctors, nurses, paramedics and other health-care professionals who agree to staff rural facilities and family practice clinics where recruitment is currently a problem.
5. Enshrine a policy that seniors’ care must be provided in the communities where they or their families live.
6. Expand home support and home care programs and assisted-living services to support people with chronic care needs, including many seniors who wish to stay in their own homes and communities.
7. Ensure that the Canada Health Act is enforced. (i.e., the federal government cannot wash its hands of health care.)
8. Follow through on our commitment to a national Mental Health Strategy.
9. Expand our awareness and investment in prevention. Focus on nutrition. Restrict more carcinogenic, neurotoxic, and immune-suppressive substances. Ensure physical activity from pre-school through high school.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May represents Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.
Originally printed in the Hill Times.

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Fortunately, a great deal of my life is spent working with wonderful initiatives in Saanich-Gulf Islands. It is well recognized that the area, like much of Canada, has a housing crisis. We need low-income housing and we need affordable housing. With the federal government having backed out of housing in the previous Liberal deficit-cutting era, the current federal government has only extended its reach to help for housing for the disabled, seniors and First Nations. And even in those categories the federal help is minimal.

The good news is the great variety of local initiatives in housing. These tend to be volunteerrun, charitably funded and largely under the radar. One of the champs in this area is the Royal Canadian Legion. It was a wonderful surprise to me to realize that all those poppy sales not only help veterans (and do a lot of powerful good in funding programmes for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and other programmes the Department of Veterans Affairs should be doing, but isn’t), but also support projects for housing for any low-income senior—regardless of whether they are veterans or not.

Out on East Saanich Road, Legion Manor is a fabulous, wellrun facility for low income seniors. It includes 77 rooms for independent living for individuals as well as 66 units for supported extended care and for seniors with disabilities. Legion volunteers run great activities at the Manor, in arts and crafts and music. (By the way, if anyone on the Peninsula is a competent weaver, Legion Manor has a table loom and no one able to teach courses using it at the moment. Send me a note if you can help out.) There is a full restaurant and fitness centre—all built with donations through the Legion.

Housing initiatives are also in bloom on Galiano Island. I recently toured the innovative Galiano Green housing site. As Island Tides readers will know, Galiano volunteers have secured the land, beautiful and forested, and will be leasing building sites to those who qualify. This project envisions helping younger people get an affordable roof over their head. The homes are required to have a low ecological footprint—literally designed to fit among the larger trees, none of which will be felled to allow the 20 homes to be built. Each home is to be no more than 1,000 square feet. The cost is low, both because the footprint is small and because the biggest obstacle to home ownership–being able to afford to buy the land—is removed by leasing the land. When Galiano Green volunteers explained the concept to Vancity, they got very excited about the innovation of leasing land for low cost housing. Now the model is being applied elsewhere.

On Salt Spring Island, there have been many laudable efforts. The Murakami family donation of land for housing continues to provide shelter, but the needs are growing. The Salt Spring Island Foundation did a community survey recently and found that the need for affordable housing topped the list of community concerns. There are many local charities on Salt Spring working to provide affordable housing. One of the innovative proposals has been advocated by Salt Spring’s Copper Kettle Community Partnership. Their vision is of a ‘wagon wheel’ housing development, offering many services in a hub, with residents living more independently at the spokes. In an April article in Salt Spring’s Driftwood, organizer Cherie Geauvreau said, ‘At this time, School District No. 64 could use two or three wagon wheels to house couch-surfing students.’

The immediate challenge is to obtain the land. The Copper Kettle group believes that even half-an-acre will allow the first of the wagon wheel housing projects to be built.

Nationally, the First Nations housing crisis is receiving a lot of media attention, but real solutions seem to defy policymakers. One Pender Island resident has spent several years, due to his links with the Arctic, devising affordable, modular, extendable, housing, insulated for extreme conditions; Mike Barnes briefed me on an approach with transportability, speed of assembly, and energy-efficiency benefits.

In the ’90s, Mike worked on the Pender Community Hall Community’s building committee. Anyone who gets a glimpse of his proposed healthy housing design for remote communities will immediately see the similarities with the iconic trussed roof of the Pender Island hall.

The need for low-income, affordable housing is critical and growing. It is a national crisis and touches the lives of seniors, the disabled, young people, and First Nations. This short review does not even cover all the efforts in the riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands. We also have Habitat for Humanity housing, among other charitable efforts.

As is the case in so many ways, Saanich-Gulf Islands is an innovative and creative place, leading the country. But for all this good news of local innovation, there is no replacement for solid, long-term support for low-income and affordable housing by provincial and federal governments. Pushing for federal support, so that every Canadian can count on a decent roof over their head, is one of my goals in my work in Ottawa.

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“Analyses of the drivers of increases in public sector health expenditures over the last decade showed that the contribution of aging has been relatively modest. To date, system-level cost drivers such as inflation and increased utilization have played bigger roles in health spending increases.”

– Health Care Cost Drivers: the facts, CIHI, Nov 2011

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Does the member not agree with me that we need a fuller effort that actually draws attention to, for instance, the rights of seniors once they are in long-term care facilities, in care where they are unable to protect themselves from some senior abuse which is institutional?

Ms. Laurin Liu: Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my colleague.

It is telling that on the very same day the government proposed this bill, I tabled my private member’s bill in the House that would automatically enrol every senior who qualified for the guaranteed income supplement into this program.

We see very different approaches from the government side and from the NDP. Although we support the bill, we believe that things like the guaranteed income supplement, or things that really attack poverty among seniors are the solutions that we need to attack this problem at its roots.

We can talk about long-term care or we can talk about the price of prescription medicine. There are so many things we need to do to help seniors. We invite the government to look at those things.

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