Mr. Speaker, it is always helpful at the beginning of a speech to bring us back to the starting point. I would like to re-read the motion of the member for St. Albert:
That this House requests the government to table a clear detailed plan to show how and when it intends to balance the budget including a clear statement of its vision of the role of the government in the economy in order for the people of Canada to debate the plan and vision.
I would like particularly to draw the attention of the members to the phrase, only seven words, "its vision of the role of the government". I have a vision of the role of the government, possibly in the same way that we have the role of management in any organization or the way a team works. We have leaders on a team.
I would like to suggest that we think back. I guess I am showing my age when I talk about Bobby Hull and Bobby Orr or people like that. We saw them as leaders and as showing leadership. When they were virtually physically disabled they were out on the ice. They were showing leadership. They were working at a deficit but they were showing leadership.
We heard a very interesting story from a member opposite. I apologize that I did not catch the name of the gentleman she was talking about in a member's statement this week. I believe it was the chairman of the board of Algoma Steel who has the personal opportunity to take $400,000 through a bonus system as chairman. He is entitled to have $400,000. He is turning it back. He is not taking the $400,000 because he recognizes that if he is going to show leadership, if Algoma Steel is going to go ahead, then he must exhibit selfless leadership.
I suggest that the vision of the role of government in my mind is that of showing leadership. I believe that every member of the House from the Prime Minister to the independent has a direct responsibility to show leadership.
How does this fit together with what we are presently undertaking under the direction of the Liberals? Take, for example, the human resources review committee that will be going out and around the countryside. Members of the committee will be discussing issues like unemployment insurance, welfare and how we are going to be helping our children with their university educations. They are going to be listening to witnesses from organizations like this who are very concerned.
I have in my hand a note from one of my constituents. In part it reads as follows: "Numerous Canadians have lost their jobs over the last year. In most circumstances those who are terminated, laid off or fired do not remain on payroll". Seems reasonable.
"Canadians assumed when they put their x in the box one year ago today, October 25, that those members who they booted out of the House would be off the payroll. Not so. Canadians will be delighted no doubt to learn that in the 365 days since they terminated their MPs the public purse has shelled out for their former MPs' pensions, travel expenses, retraining, moving and severance. Add it up.
I am confident that those Canadians who are lined up at the UI office awaiting their miserable little UI cheques for years of hard work in companies that have folded due to previous governments' mismanagement will be comforted in knowing that the members of the government who put them in that line-up are still on the public dole of another kind".
This is the kind of hostility there is among the Canadian people. I make no excuse for it. I simply report it.
If all members of the House are really forthcoming they will agree with me that they have been approached by people in their constituencies; in their constituency office or accosted on the street or in the supermarket with sentiments of exactly that same kind.
It is the number one issue in my constituency. I have spoken about the Young Offenders Act. I have spoken about the deficit and the debt. But number one on the hit parade is the MPs' pensions.
I find it quite amazing that the vast majority of the people in the House, with the turnover of over 200 members being here for the very first time, are supporting what is the number one impediment, the number one wall between members of Parliament and the public. The public sees this whole thing as being completely unfair.
The member for Yellowhead rose in the House and also sent out a press release just the other day and I read in part: "The Yellowhead MP laid into the Prime Minister and his Liberal government today for turning a blind eye to the fast approaching national trough day.
On November 21, 52 current members of Parliament will qualify to dip into the lucrative MP pension fund once they no longer occupy a seat in the House. These pension payouts are estimated to cost the Canadian taxpayers $53 million. Among the 52 MPs who will sidle up to the pension trough once they are out of office are-". I am sure the Speaker would prefer that I do not go ahead and name people like the leader of the Bloc.
It goes on: "`Canadians find it absolutely unacceptable that the Prime Minister says he is dedicated to spending cuts when he continues to allow this kind of taxpayers' abuse', the member said to a round of cheers from his Reform colleagues in the House".
I am rather curious. I absolutely believe it is a barrier between good government, in other words people believing in the members of Parliament, people believing in this place of power and authority in our country. If the number one impediment is simply the long awaited reforms that the Reform Party has been demanding about the MPs' pensions, why in the world would the Prime Minister not have come forward before this point, particularly in light of the fact that the National Citizens Coalition is going to be launching an MP trough day campaign. There are going to be billboards all over the place.
As the human resources committee goes around led by its chairman discussing issues like UI, welfare and how we are going to be funding university education, what kind of response is that chairman expecting when he sits in front of students who are going to be at an exceptional disadvantage perhaps as a result of the changes that are going to have to happen? What kind of response does the chairman expect from the public for his committee when he sits in front of people who are the disadvantaged and are presently on welfare when that member for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso is going to be drawing $1.5 million by the time he is 75 years of age? I wonder how the university students will feel about that.
This is a critical, crucial issue to the entire vision of where the government should be going and how the government should be showing leadership. Therefore, I call on the Prime Minister and the members of his caucus tomorrow in caucus to demand of the Prime Minister that this issue once and for all be finally put to rest.