Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to point out that the motion is indicating that this fuel subsidy program remains in place until the recommendations contained in the report of the comprehensive review of the programs and benefits to seniors and elders is reviewed by the Standing Committee on Social Programs and the Legislative Assembly.
I do not think that this is attempting to tie the Ministers' or the Cabinet's hands to a certain program that would stay the same way forever. I also do not believe that we have the very poorest of the poor living in seniors' housing. They are some that are working. There are some that live on government pensions and some who have both the wife and the husband living on government pensions. So, we cannot just categorically say everybody is living on $200 a month or whatever it is. But, we have done a little bit of checking also. We know that there is a certain level, everybody has to get pensions up to a certain level. We waited for months, many months, Mr. Speaker. We did not just come out of the blue yesterday and say we want this program. We have been talking about this for a long time. We made suggestions. Everything seems to be falling on deaf ears. There is a huge disparity in the way we treat our seniors in the north. We allow seniors to live in social housing without looking at whether they are working or whether they are drawing government pensions. They pay nothing for the running of their house. They may be living on pensions, like CPP, and the supplement alone but there are seniors out there who are living in their own homes with exactly the same pensions as those that are living in social housing for absolutely nothing. Those seniors that live in their own homes have to pay for all their electricity, fuel, water, the repairs on their house and everything else that goes with it.
What we are talking about is trying to treat people fairly. We want to try to assist the seniors in maintaining their independence, to help them live independently as long as possible without having to go to the welfare office. They have changed the name of that now to income support to make it sound a little better, but it is still the same thing. We do not want people lining up at the soup lines to get soup, the bread lines to get bread. These seniors have lived all their lives and contributed to the north. Does the Minister have a plan hanging in his back pocket to implement a new fossil fuel program? No. Do the seniors have a need? Yes. This is the strongest message that we can send to the Minister that we are serious. This is why we are making this. Thank you.
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