Mr. Speaker, this member, when our member for North Vancouver was making some comments a couple of weeks ago, said that it was the gong show, that he could ring the gong.
I can imagine that there are a number of Canadians who are watching the parliamentary channel today who just listened to this wonderful verbose bunch of hot air and they want a gong. How in the world can this member say that there should be some reasonable expectation on the part of members of Parliament with respect to this particular issue when we have all known that this has been a major issue? How does that compare with the people of Canada who have lost their jobs, who are having roll backs in their pay cheques and who are facing hardship, for members of this assembly to be sitting around saying: "Well, you know, I really wasn't expecting this. Boy, I don't know"?
I have a lot of sympathy, and I mean this in all seriousness, for the former members in terms of the reform of the pension plan as was suggested by the member for Vancouver Quadra in the same way that I have sympathy for Bobby Orr and other people who are members of the NHL Players Association when they apparently were ripped off in that situation.
What about the old age security recipients?
What about the people who put away their dollars in good faith that the Liberals were going to bring in some kind of a sound policy over the last 25 years so that their retirement pension plans would not have been eaten up by inflation and so that their entire pension plans would not have been under attack by the policies of this government?
Those being my comments I ask the member: Considering that this issue is the number one issue on the hit parade of all Canadians, the number one reason why Canadians do not feel comfortable with politicians, why they think that we consider ourselves to be in a different class or a different league, which I do not and I do not imagine any other member does, why does he think his Prime Minister has delayed and delayed and delayed to bring forward this very simply reform?