Bill C-270 (Historical)

Members of Parliament Superannuation Act

An Act to discontinue the retiring allowances payable to members of Parliament under the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act and to include members of Parliament in the Public Service Superannuation Act and to discontinue members' tax free allowances for expenses and include the amount in members' sessional allowances

Members Of Parliament Superannuation Act

[Jim Gouk, Canadian Alliance, Kootenay—Boundary—Okanagan, BC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-270, an act to discontinue the retiring allowances payable to members of parliament under the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act and to include members of Parliament in the Public Service Superannuation Act and to discontinue members' tax free allowances for expenses and include the amount in members' sessional allowances.

Mr. Speaker, I rise once again to reintroduce a bill in keeping with a promise to my constituents made in 1998. The bill addresses two concerns of parliament and two concerns of the Canadian people.

One is that MPs should be paid in a manner which is visible and should be treated in the same manner as other Canadian taxpayers. The second is that the pension plan of MPs should be in line with what is available to others. In the case of my bill it will put them in line with the program of federal superannuation paid to all public servants in the country.

I believe this is a fair way to treat MPs. With a review of the pay and benefits of MPs now underway I hope the government will implement the recommendations of the study, which it did not do in 1977.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Points Of Order

[John Williams, Canadian Alliance, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I notice in The Canada Gazette that an amount of $1.768 billion has been approved by Governor General's special warrant providing for expenditures from January 13, 2001 to February 11, 2001.

I refer to private member's Bill C-270, assented to on February 19, 1997, with which I think the Speaker is quite familiar. If I may quote the bill, it says “Subject to subsection (1.1) where payment is urgently required for the public good” and “there is no other appropriation pursuant to which the payment may be made”, the Governor General may authorize the payment.

When I look at the details of this special warrant, I see that they are all basically for operating expenditures. The House approved operating expenditures for all the departments mentioned when we approved the main estimates last June.

Therefore in my opinion this is not eligible to be approved by way of special warrant because there was already an appropriation made by the House last June to cover the operating expenditures for the departments listed in this special warrant.

Therefore I would like to ask the President of the Treasury Board why this $1.768 billion of taxpayer money is being expended without reference to the House and when this will be rectified. Perhaps she could clarify whether or not this is actually legal, because in my opinion it is in contravention of the law as it currently stands.