Madam Speaker, I thank the member for the emphasis on the seniors who have been in distress because of the clawback of the benefit.
I am shocked, really. We raised this in the summer when it was just becoming apparent that seniors were being affected. We have since learned in media reports that the government knew about the problem last May. Maybe the government thinks it makes sense to celebrate, on the one-year anniversary of finding out about the problem, by trying to fix it, but that is no celebration for seniors who have been living it.
There are a lot of outstanding questions about whether this fix is going to work. I am glad to see the government bowing to public pressure and trying to find a solution, but it needs to do better. What we were asking for is that they simply eliminate pandemic benefits from the eligibility calculation for income-tested benefits. That is a big word salad. It just means the exceptional benefits paid in the pandemic would not count against their normal income under the statutory programs that people rely on.
Had the government warned people that they were going to take it back from them a year later and that they should put some aside for that, it would be one thing; however, expecting seniors who are already living in poverty to navigate all the details of government departments that members in this place often have a hard time figuring out, and expecting them to ask members of the government directly about things and get straight answers when we cannot, is wrong.
Expecting seniors in financial distress to figure it all out for themselves was wrong, punishing them for it was wrong, and delaying the solution for up to a year from when they knew about the problem is equally wrong.