Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to speak on Bill C-17. The first thing I have to say is that Bill C-17 is an omnibus bill. It covers many areas, some of which we support and some to which we take exception.
We have asked the government to break the bill into its constituent parts, which it refused to do. We were therefore left with little or no choice but to put these motions in order that we may stress the point that we agree with some parts of the bill and disagree with other parts. While we will be forced to vote against the bill in its entirety, we wish to go on the record as saying that we do support certain parts of the bill and hence our motions this morning.
Basically we are in favour of the sections pertaining to the freezing of wages of the public sector. As everyone knows we are in a serious debt and deficit crisis. Anything that can be done to help alleviate that problem has to be in the best interests of the country.
However as the Reform Party has pointed out on many occasions, much more could be done by the government rather than turning on its own civil service and squeezing some extra money out of its pockets to help the government come to terms with its debt and deficit situation. If we had not only frozen the salaries of the public sector but eliminated every civil servant in the country and saved every nickel that we were paying in wages to these people, we would still not save even half the annual deficit.
Therefore if the government thinks it is going to balance the budget on the backs of the civil servants, it has it entirely wrong. However the basic concept that we are going to save some additional money because every nickel helps in this exercise has to be supported.
There are some items that I want to point out. One is the extension not only of the salary freeze for an additional two years but the introduction of a two-year suspension of pay increments within the salary grades.
I have had numerous representations made to me as a member of Parliament for the constituency of St. Albert where the Royal Canadian Mounted Police perform the police services. In the RCMP, when a new Mountie graduates from training school, his pay increases semi-annually over the next three years until he reaches the normal salary for a police constable.
With this change the increments of a new RCMP constable are now frozen. Now we have an inequity between the amount of money that is paid to new RCMP constables on the beat and the ones who are there already. It is not that they do not want to do their part, but members of the RCMP are subject to transfer from one part of the country to another more frequently than any other member of the civil service. As they move from rural Alberta or Saskatchewan to perhaps downtown Vancouver the cost of living is going to change dramatically.
They are being asked to maintain their salaries at exactly the same level as they entered the police force rather than have the semi-annual increments to bring them up to the level of any other constable in the force.
We see the rise in crime. We have talked about it in the House on many occasions. Perhaps we should give some consideration to recognizing the value that our police force provides to us in the maintenance of law and order. How can we expect them to get by on less than a shoestring? We are not adequately compensating these people as they in many cases put their lives on the line for our protection. We are asking them to do that with less than reasonable salary for the new members of the force.
We support the wage freeze in the public service. We want to do whatever we can as the Reform Party to ensure that every effort is made to come to terms with this horrible deficit that we have. It may be a small step but it is a step that we support with some reservations in some areas.
As I said at the outset, while we will be voting against the bill in its entirety when it comes up for a vote we wish to go on record as having supported the basic thrust of the clause regarding public service wages in Bill C-17.
The other sections that deal with compensation in other areas outside the ones I have mentioned we are basically in support of, especially the one that would freeze the salaries of MPs. We have always wanted to send a clear signal to Canadians saying: "Let us provide leadership".
During the last election that was one of the things that we as Reformers said, that providing leadership to Canadians, demonstrating that we as government and parliamentarians, as those elected to show the way and lead the way in the country, are prepared to do our part to ensure efficient government is provided at a reasonable cost to Canadians at this time when restraint has to be the watchword.