Mr. Speaker, I did want to have an opportunity to ask the hon. member a question and perhaps make a comment in advance of doing that.
He is quite right that MPs do make sacrifices. One of the sacrifices I have had to make is to give up one of my favourite pastimes of reading fiction. Fortunately, sitting in the House today has been some compensation for that.
Let us talk about the figure of $156 million that he bandied about. Let us understand what that is. That is an accrual figure. For those members who understand a balance sheet, it would be like counting depreciation as a cash layout. It is not any such thing. It is a liability that would suggest that if every member of Parliament lived to their actuarial age and if every member of Parliament qualified for a pension, that would be the lifetime expense of the pension. First, 50 per cent of MPs never receive it, so that figure is nothing but an accrual figure that is used by actuaries who are dealing with a pension plan. It is not a true government expense.
Let us get down to what the true government expense is. Right now, under the present regime, it is between $10 million and $11 million. That will drop by 33 per cent.
Let us put into context what this great party across the way is battling and why it is so worried about economic concerns. This represents six one-thousandths of one per cent of the total government expenditure. The party that has come here to control expenditures, the party that has come here because Canadians have told them that we are spending too much, has all of this outrage to deal with six one-thousandths of one per cent of government expenditure.
Let us put it in a better light. If a member was earning $40,000 a year and decided they needed to cut back on their expenditures, the amount the MP's pension would represent in equivalent terms of that $40,000 is $2.40. That is all they would be dealing with, and that is all we are dealing with in the cost.
So I think that when the member describes these expenditures he should do it accurately and in the appropriate context.
I have one other point. He talks about the fact that double dipping is going to continue. I point out there are four members of his party who are double dipping using the definition he just used. I ask the hon. member: Are those four members going to stop their double dipping? Will they stop drawing their pensions from the public purse while they sit in this House and draw the MP pension? Or are they going to continue with double dipping? It will be interesting to hear the answer.