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moved that Bill C-261, An Act to amend the Old Age Security Act (amount of full pension), be read the second time and referred to a committee. She said: Mr. Speaker, it is always very moving to have the privilege of introducing a bill that one cares about. I will be reading my speech because I want to share my message in full and I do not want to run out of time. For a society to live in peace, its citizens must live with confidence. They have to feel certain that their government is taking care of them, that it is working for their well-being and that it is keeping its promises. When a person retires, that is the moment of truth. That is when the unspoken agreement between the citizen and the state must be honoured. It should be the time to reap the rewards of decades of hard work, a time of dignity, not a time of mere survival. However, today, too many new retirees await this freedom with a sense of dread. On behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I am calling on my esteemed colleagues and fellow citizens to correct an injustice. We are living in one of the wealthiest societies in the world, one that prides itself on its social safety net, its values, its compassion and its commitment to mutual support. However, today, we are seeing this safety net become ever more fragile. There are more and more holes in it. We are abandoning the very people who built our schools, our hospitals and our businesses. We spend our lives imagining a retirement where we want for nothing, where we can have a well-deserved rest and where we can live out our lives in complete security. However, for thousands of new retirees, old age security and the guaranteed income supplement no longer constitute the promised safety net. Instead, they are life rafts and they are taking on water. We are not talking about charity here. We are talking about a social contract. These men and women paid their taxes for 40 or 50 years. They contributed to the country’s economic success. They raised the generation that is now leading Quebec. The implicit promise was simple. If people worked hard and contributed to the common good, then the state would make sure that they wanted for nothing as they grew old. We are way off the mark. Not only are we way off the mark, but it is now clear that the Liberal government did not keep this promise—one among many, some might say. Young retirees are being forced to keep working just to make ends meet. Is this the sneaky way that the current Prime Minister and his predecessor have found to effectively raise the retirement age, without anyone noticing? If so, it is dishonest and unworthy of the office. This government tried to address the discontent but only managed to create an even greater injustice. It officially established two classes of retirees by deciding to increase OAS by 10% for those over the age of 75. On the one hand, we have older seniors, who are deemed worthy of additional assistance, and on the other, we have young retirees aged 65 to 74, who are essentially being told to fend for themselves. What is the logic behind that discrimination? At the grocery store, does inflation ask how old the customer is? Are rent, gas or heating costs lower when someone is 70 than when they are 76? What happens on the night before a retiree turns 75? It takes just as much air to blow out 65 candles as it does 75. The government says that seniors aged 65 to 74 are still active and can work to supplement their income. This is an insult to those who have had physically demanding careers and who, let us face it, are worn out. Asking a 68-year-old construction worker, warehouse worker or restaurant server to go back to work just to pay for groceries is not really a solution. It is an admission of failure. It means accepting that the government has failed in its duty. We in the Bloc Québécois will not back down. That is why, since 2021, we have been making every effort to put an end to the injustice caused by these two classes of seniors. We are often told that this would be financially unsustainable. We are told that increasing pensions for people aged 65 to 74 would cost the public purse billions of dollars. That is true. It is a significant amount. However, what is the cost of not doing it? How much does it cost our health care system when a senior eats poorly because fruit and vegetables have become a luxury? How much does social isolation—which leads to depression—cost? How much does the loss of dignity cost? It is not just a matter of compassion; it is also a matter of public health and safety. Thorough research has provided irrefutable evidence that the most egalitarian societies are the ones that fare the best. I am not going to mince words: The harms caused by inequality affect women first and foremost. Once again, women are statistically the ones who have the lowest pensions. They are the ones who live the longest in solitude. By refusing to help seniors aged 65 to 74, this government is perpetrating a form of economic harm against our mothers and grandmothers. It is taking the women who kept our society going—often from the shadows, often without pay—and putting them in a vulnerable position. Causing them anxiety about the future is truly unworthy of this House. Study after study clearly proves it. When the wealth gap is narrowed, crime falls significantly and confidence rises. Mental illness declines. Obesity, chronic stress and violence—especially violence against women—decline. Conversely, the wider the wealth gap, the sicker the body politic. Colleagues, for a society to live in peace, it takes confidence. I said it before and I am saying it again. However, poverty among seniors undermines that confidence. It creates anxiety not only for retirees, but also for their children and grandchildren, who see their own future as a threatening prospect, rather than a comfortable one. How can they trust a government that cheats their parents and flouts the social contract? By allowing seniors’ spending power to collapse, the government is making a conscious decision to increase future social costs. It is opting for more people in hospital beds, more psychological distress and more insecurity. Of course, there are those who will solemnly claim that the cupboard is bare, that the debt is too big. Honestly, that is a risible argument. When it comes to finding millions of dollars to subsidize oil and gas giants, who do not need financial support, the money seems to appear out of thin air. When it comes to buying a pipeline in western Canada that will never serve our interests, the cheque book is often wide open. When the big banks are making record profits while raising fees on consumers, the government looks the other way. When billions of dollars end up in tax havens without being taxed, we are told it is really complicated. It is so complicated to get the money back from the tax havens. However, when a 72-year-old grandmother asks for what she is entitled to, namely enough money to pay her heating bill, just like her 76-year-old neighbour, suddenly everyone has to be responsible. They pull out the calculator and talk to us about fiscal discipline. This is not really a problem of revenue. It is a problem of choice. It is a political choice, a political decision. Clearly, this government’s choices are not the same ones the public would make. The government prefers to help those who pollute, those who make massive profits, and neglects those who built Quebec. As someone who devoted her entire career to seniors, I think that is completely outrageous. We are not asking for the moon. We are asking the government to honour a social contract. Is it too much to ask to maintain what little balance still remains? I repeat: Our seniors are not asking for charity. They are demanding respect. What we are seeing today is a government that is deliberately and knowingly choosing to create and maintain two classes of seniors: one that deserves to be helped and another that is left to fend for itself. This age-based discrimination is unworthy of a modern society. The people that my colleagues and I represent think that this is unacceptable, and I am sure that many members of the House from all political parties agree with them. We are not here to beg for favours. We are here to correct an injustice and appeal to every member of the House’s sense of reason. For a society to live in peace, it must treat those who built it with respect. What is needed now is more than just rhetoric on election day or during an election campaign. What folks need are cheques that will cover groceries and rent. It is time to stop seeing retirees as a budgetary burden or an expense column in an Excel spreadsheet. They are our society’s collective memory. They are our roots, and it is absurd to cut off the water supply to our roots under the pretext of saving money. In the name of dignity, we call on the government to stop its petty calculations. It needs to stop dividing people. It needs to stop dividing seniors. We need to give them back what they entrusted us with. On behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I urge all my colleagues to vote in favour of Bill C-261, an act to amend the Old Age Security Act. Many citizens heard that today would be quite a memorable day in my career as a member of Parliament. Seriously, over the past week, I have received hundreds of letters, emails and notes encouraging me to continue on this path, because seniors know that their living conditions and their dignity are not being respected at all. People in my riding, as well as the Fédération de l’âge d’or du Québec, or FADOQ, the largest seniors’ group in Quebec, representing several thousand people, are making this their top demand. I also spoke with the Association québécoise de défense des droits des personnes retraitées et préretraitées and with retirees from Quebec, who share the same demand. It is not too complicated. They are asking for fairness and justice. They are calling on the government to correct this age-based inequity and discrimination. I look forward to taking questions from my colleagues. In the last Parliament, my colleague from Shefford sponsored Bill C‑319, which went through a lengthy legislative process. Although it died on the Order Paper, a number of members in the House supported that bill. We hope the House of Commons shows the same cohesion and consensus again. Not only does Bill C‑261 seek to correct the injustice, but it also seeks to increase the GIS maximum exemption amount. It is important to clarify that. The bill provides for a 10% increase in OAS, but it also increases to $6,500 the maximum amount a person can earn before their GIS is reduced. Around 20% of seniors in my riding tell me that they are forced to work. However, for GIS recipients, any income over $5,000 is subject to a clawback. As the saying goes, that is like trading four quarters for a dollar. That is what my grandmother used to say. What do all these seniors end up doing, then? They end up working under the table or just making do, because they basically need every penny of their income to make ends meet. In closing, I can say that this truly comes from the heart. I know that my colleague across the aisle secured a royal recommendation to pass a bill that will allow bereaved parents who have lost a child to continue receiving their employment insurance benefits. I therefore hope to convince the government that it has a great opportunity to right a wrong and, of course, grant a royal recommendation to my bill. This bill will allow seniors to live better. Above all, they will see that this injustice and discrimination have finally been addressed. It is a matter of respect, and frankly, there is no room for compromise. Again, I appeal to my colleagues, from the bottom of my heart, to support Bill C-261.
