I am glad to hear it. The hon. member only has a page. He should take the whole book home and keep it under his pillow. He might sleep better.
Whatever the results of the independent review, a Liberal government will reform the pension plan of members of Parliament to end "double-dipping." MPs should not be able to leave office and receive a pension from the federal government if they accept a new full-time paying job from the federal government. In addition, we will review the question of the minimum age at which pensions will begin to be paid.
When the Conservative government came to power in 1984, while citing the need for economy it nonetheless found the resources to increase both the size of political staffs and the pay available to them. These expansions created bloated political budgets and inflated salaries for members and friends of the Conservative Party. A Liberal government will reduce the size and budgets of ministers' offices and the Prime Minister's Office by at least $10 million a year.
I challenge hon. members opposite to find one statement in that whole paragraph on parliamentary reform that has not been fulfilled by the government to date. The government has moved on every single one of its promises and it has gone further on most of them.
Hon. members opposite who have been bleating, whining, blithering and crying all day should repent. Get off it, I say to them, and face the facts. The government has lived up to its commitments in full measure. They were all in the red book. They were all made manifest for the public to look at and consider in an election campaign. The public voted for the red book in droves.
I know members in the Reform Party in particular do not like to hear that fact. They like to hear only the facts from their own perspective, their own friends. Their idea of consultation is to consult their friends and then say this must be what everybody wants. There are Canadians who are not friends of the Reform Party. There are lots and lots of them where I come from. I know lots and lots who think the Reform Party is quite idiotic. Still they are not the people to whom Reformers talk when they want a consultation.
I want to read why Canadians and particularly the poor souls that have been following the Reform Party have been so badly deceived. We saw this kind of deception go on in the House the other day. I know I cannot imitate the accent but the quotation is this. It was on April 27 in the House:
One of the reasons there is so much public cynicism about politics and government is that governments consistently break their promises.