Hon. Patricia Bovey: Senator Cordy, would you take another question?

Senator Cordy: Yes, I will.

Senator Bovey: Senator Cordy, I would like to thank you for your sponsorship of this bill. I just want to clarify if you heard what I heard from some of the witnesses.

Of the 185,000 people who will be affected by this, did we not hear that most of them were women and most of them over 80? Many of them are widowed or living alone.

When the question was posed, what would the effect be if this was not passed, did we not hear, as a committee, that it would be disastrous?

Senator Cordy: Thank you very much. That’s a really good question.

Of course, we heard from witnesses that it would be devastating. As I said earlier, every witness who appeared before the committee, every witness, said this had to be passed immediately.

They went into great length to talk about other ways that we should be helping seniors, that this should not be the end, that we have one piece of seniors’ legislation to help them and then another one in a few years’ time.

It’s very important that we look at policies and financial help for seniors who are living on the edge and just barely making it from paycheque to paycheque. We heard of very poor situations that seniors are living in overall.

Thank you very much, Senator Bovey.