My motivation actually goes back to my days with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
I was sitting in my Ottawa office, as I recall. I was there when Senator Lavigne was found guilty of several crimes, fraud and breach of trust being two of them. He was set to be expelled by the Senate. Ultimately, Lavigne resigned before he was to be expelled, thereby keeping his parliamentary pension. He served his time in jail, and while he was in jail he was collecting a parliamentary pension. Today he's a free man—guilty, a dishonourable senator—and he continues to collect a pension worth $67,000.
I remember the outrage of taxpayers across the country when it was announced that he had been found guilty of fleecing taxpayers yet was entitled to retain his pension, frankly because of a loophole in the law. Had he not been able to resign, he would have been ejected from the Senate and would have therefore lost his parliamentary pension.
This bill closes that loophole. If you commit crimes against taxpayers, you steal money from taxpayers and you're found guilty in a court of law—which I think is very important, in that it's not Parliament, not a partisan body deciding your guilt; it is a court of law—that should be enough to trigger the loss of a pension.