I thank the hon. member on the other side who is asking his people to settle down. It would be very helpful.
Reformers are ordinary people who have families to support and mortgages to pay. They would like nothing better than to participate in a pension plan that is fair, but the Liberal plan is so extravagant that Reformers must opt out on principle. That is where it comes back to leadership.
It is ironic to suggest that reforming the MP pension plan is a sacrifice for members of Parliament. As I said, this is a wonderful job, a job to publicly serve a country where democracy is the cornerstone of our political system. We should not take advantage of that by having to be paid through these obscene pension plans after leaving here.
All we have ever suggested doing is to take our existing, outdated, lavish, unfair and expensive pension plan and correlate it with the private sector provisions for employees. This is no sacrifice. It is doing what every other Canadian out there is doing, which is trying to take care of themselves. It is an expectation from our electorate that we reform this outrageous pension plan.
More than anything else, Canadians resent that they are being asked over and over and over again to tighten their belts, that they must pay higher taxes, that their hard earned paycheques are taxed back to the government. Let us not forget that about eight million Canadians have no pensions at all. Canadians are at a point where they no longer believe their politicians are worthy of their support.
I know I can speak to the constituents of the riding of Calgary Southeast on this issue and get that kind of response. In town hall after town hall on the issues of the day, this one keeps coming up: "When are you going to get rid of that terrible MP pension plan?"
I have mentioned in this House before about the reforms that were happening in my home province of Alberta. In the spring of 1993 Premier Klein announced there would be no pension plan for members of the legislative assembly after the next election. Indeed, Mr. Klein kept that commitment to Albertans. It is no wonder that Mr. Klein's leadership retains one of the very highest levels of support in the history of Alberta.