Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank Member Menicoche for bringing this motion forward and Mr. Hawkins for seconding it.

I can’t believe that in this day and age we are creating a lot of fear-mongering. Why are we waging a war against our seniors and our elders? It is disheartening. We are not sure where the federal Minister or Finance is going with this, why the perceived crisis. One has to ask: Is there another agenda out there for the public pension system? We don’t know. Again, if you are going to look at savings of any plan, you have to look at the revenue on it. You have to look at program spending. That is for true sustainability and some management has prevailed. I am not sure if the federal system is looking at those areas. Raising the age of benefits is not one of those solutions.

People are living longer, Mr. Speaker. We know that from our statistics. This country of ours has survived a large economic crisis. I commend them for that, but if you look at the bigger picture, security benefits for seniors here is just a small piece of the overall economic situation to focus this attention on

raising the age. It doesn’t make sense on the math. As Canadians and Northerners, we have other dire economic cobblestones on our pathway we should be focusing on, as I said earlier, sustainability, sound management and not raising this benefit. I will be speaking in favour of this motion for our government to be stewards for Northerners, seniors and our elders. Thank you.