My colleague tells me there are 24 committees. So we'd be looking an additional 24 salaries of, I believe, $6,200 each is the pay increase, so we'd be talking about more than $150,000. That's money that comes out of Canadians' pockets and there are a lot of Canadians for whom $150,000 could make a pretty big difference.
I'll get into that in a second, but the bottom line here is that we're talking about additional pay essentially for the entire caucus of the smallest official party in Parliament. In fact it would almost certainly amount to, for some of those members of that caucus, two additional salaries. Given the number of members they have in the caucus and the number of committee there are, it's pretty clear that would have to be the case.
I've sat on a lot of committees. I've chaired a lot of committees. I've been the vice-chair of committees. There are times when a vice-chair does have to fill the chair's role, and that's the recognition of what's being done there, but I think it's pretty hard to imagine a scenario coming up very often, if ever, in which it gets to the point where we have to have a third vice-chair take the chair. So the idea of additional pay for that is something that I think would offend some Canadians, frankly, the idea that someone who probably will never have to actually exercise those duties would receive that. That's a concern that needs to be brought forward here as well.
I know some of my colleagues were a little upset with me last time that I didn't give them an opportunity to speak. I was trying to make sure that I earned my pay and I want to let them to have a chance to earn theirs. Maybe what I'll do, then, is to s yield the floor. I think I have my name back on the list and maybe I can have an opportunity to move an amendment, if needed, at that time.