Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to address the issue of MP pensions today. We are debating Bill C-85, which should be entitled an act to make minimal changes to the gold plated MP pension scheme.
I have heard Liberal members speaking about their MP pension plan and they do not want to give it up. They sound like spoiled children, whining about how difficult life would be if
they did not have their MP pension plan. I hear the sound of violins out of tune on the other side. It is really pitiful that we have to listen to this screeching, wailing and complaining. Canadians deserve better than what they are getting from their Liberal representatives today.
My colleagues and I in the Reform Party are proud that our constant pressure on the issue has finally led to some government action. It did not want to do anything. Unfortunately the government has failed to propose any meaningful changes and as a result the bill falls well short of what the public expects and what Reformers can accept.
What the government fails to understand is that all of us in the Chamber work for and are paid by the public. We must ensure the compensation package for members of Parliament, including the pension portion, is in line with public sector standards and what Canadians want to pay us. We must respect taxpayer money as if it were our own. I would like to repeat that because I do not think the Liberals understand. They do not think about the concept that we must respect taxpayer money as if it were our own.
We would not spend money foolishly. We would not spend it so extravagantly, especially if we were running a country $550 billion in debt. I do not know why the Liberals cannot understand taxpayer money is very important. It is precious. They worked hard for that money. Why should they see it so extravagantly thrown to the wind?
I know the Prime Minister and many others on the government side have waxed poetic about all the hard work MPs do. It is true that the majority of MPs do work very hard. What the government forgets is most Canadians across the country work very hard also. I do not think any Canadian gets the kind of pension plan MPs receive. None of them receives such a lavish, extravagant remuneration after their retirement or defeat.
Canadians are aware of the long, hard hours members put in and I do not think they actually begrudge the salary of a member of Parliament. After all, there are many professions in Canada where the pay is higher than that of a member of Parliament. Senior teachers, for example, can earn in excess of $65,000 in some jurisdictions, and sometimes school board officials receive upward of $100,000. What angers Canadians are the pensions of MPs. There is no private sector precedent for such a lucrative plan.
It is important to recognize the opinions of Canadians matter when it comes to issues of members' pay and pension. The government has forgotten that it is the Canadian public that it is here to represent. It is the Canadian public that it works for. It is the Canadians who pay all the bills. It is a strange arrangement where the employees design their own pension plan and brag about it even though it outrages Canadians, the people who actually pay the bills. The views of the taxpaying public on this issue should be heard and respected.
The government is only going through the motions of pension reform. It reminds me of lip syncing the old country and western song, "If you've got the money, honey, I've got the time". Government members have years and years of a retirement life with $30,000, $70,000 a year, totalling in some cases several million dollars. Perrin Beatty, recently appointed as the president of the CBC, has an MP pension which will total over $5 million by the time he reaches 75. The MP pension plan attracts selfish opportunists to political life.
I heard a member of the NDP saying members have to be paid properly if we are to attract good quality representatives to the House. I do not believe that. I believe the motives of the members of this place must be higher than fixing their sights on the remuneration and the pension plan they receive. It is a bit revealing when we hear members discuss these issues as to their motives for seeking election and why they are here.
Bill C-85 is a cynical attempt at a public relations job rather than a significant policy change. The Liberals are trying to give the appearance that they are taking action on the issue of gold plated MPs pensions but in fact are not.
The government is making what it sees as the minimum necessary changes in its opinion to the pension plan. It is the least it could do, and certainly it does the very least.
The Liberals have decreased the annual accrual rate of benefits from 5 per cent per year to 4 per cent. The provision makes a minor change in the rate at which pension benefits increase, but it does not change the maximum pension amount members can receive. It slightly increases the time it takes to reach the maximum. There is no substantive change here. There is a slight accounting change that has been dressed up to give the public the impression of reform. It is not the real thing.
It is a lot like the noise the finance minister made about real cuts to overall spending in his budget. Total spending this year will be higher than the total spending last year. Despite this fact the Liberals have their spin doctors and media people spinning a tale of real spending reductions when there has been a spending increase. Canadians know who the real reformers are and they are not on the government benches. The legislation proves it.
I can hear the Minister of Health saying that instead of a very, very generous pension plan it is a very generous pension plan.
It is difficult to find a positive side. The positive side is by far the smaller side on a multi-sided sphere. On the positive side the government has established a minimum age for eligibility although it is set pretty low. I wonder how many private pension plans set a normal retirement at age 55. The normal retirement age is 65.
The old age pension begins to be paid at age 65. If people in the private sector take early retirement they receive lower and lower benefits for each additional year they draw from the plan. This is done with private sector pensions because it is believed they should be actuarially sound. This concept seems to be foreign to a government that thinks it does not matter if the numbers add up at the end of the day, that it is somebody else's money and that it will do with it as it pleases.
The government does not have the foggiest notion of the consequences of lavish spending that has sunk us over $550 billion in debt. It says that we should look after ourselves. It is the selfish baby boomer MPs who say: "Too bad for the rest of you. Good luck to future generations. We don't care if we bankrupt you. It is your tough luck".
The 55 years of age provision is better than what we had before. If I suddenly won the 649 and became a multimillionaire I could walk away from this place, if I were an irresponsible person. I assure the House that I am not. Had I won the election in 1988 when I first ran I would have been here for six years and would have been able to receive the gold plated pension at age 42. The 55 figure is a little better but certainly not what Canadians are asking for.
Again the Liberals have done the very least. They have made minimal changes. The government does not realize, or perhaps it does not care, that if the benefits are too high and retirement age is too low it will have to dip into public money to make up the difference. The Liberals seem to have trouble differentiating between public money and their own. It is no wonder the country is in debt up to its eyeballs. Again the government is going with the minimum necessary to give the impression of change. It does not realize that the public sees through this type of masquerade.
The elimination of double dipping that used to occur through members taking another federal job or patronage appointment is a positive move. I am pleased that in the face of public opinion and constant pressure from Reform benches the government is beginning to move on the issue.
There are many examples of people in patronage appointed positions who are collecting the MP pension. I will name a few. Ed Broadbent has apparently taken a slight reduction in his salary just so he could keep on receiving the MP pension plan. He was not going to be reappointed to his position unless he knuckled under. He would have gladly taken that pension had his term not expired and had he not needed to be reappointed.
I mentioned Perrin Beatty a little earlier. We also know that Mr. David Berger was named an ambassador. He still gets his MP pension. They had to do some wheeling and dealing to make it politically acceptable. He had to state that he would take a lesser salary than he would normally take to compensate for the pension.
It points out to the House that there is a chance for behind the scenes manoeuvring in the setting of salaries. Certainly it is not the type of scenario we want to allow retired members of Parliament to find themselves in. They are very vulnerable to corruption and wheeling and dealing behind the public's back with regard to their salary and total pension benefits.
In some cases the recipients of a cushy patronage plum will announce their new salary is being reduced by the amount of their MP pension. How can the taxpaying public know the high salary these people are paid would not have been different if the appointee did not have a fat pension? The whole system has the potential for abuse. It is all smoke and mirrors with the Liberals. Why do they not simply get into step with the rest of the country and come clean about the details of the appointments and positions?
The pension scheme remains out of line with what other Canadians have available to them. What they would approve for us brings up a very important issue, the issue of making the plan voluntary or having an opting out or opting in provision.
Bill C-85 includes an opting out or opting in provision, however we want to look at it, that is designed solely for the purpose of trying to get some crass political advantage for the government. It does not allow long time members of the House the option of completely leaving the plan. Only members elected within the last six years prior to the 1993 election have the option of refusing to participate in this taxpayer rip-off. That includes those elected for the first time in 1993 and in 1988. My hon. colleague from Beaver River was elected in a byelection in 1989. Incredibly the government wants to make it mandatory for all future members.
If it is good enough for us to have a chance to opt out or opt in now, why not for the class of 1997 or whenever the government screws up the courage to call an election? Why just the one-time opting in or opting out option? What possible reason could the government have for denying future members of the House the freedom to opt out of this gold plated scheme?
The government obviously views membership in the Camber as some sort of caste system or inherited aristocracy. MPs are not royalty. I am getting worked up. I am very serious about the issue. It really bothers me. Members of royalty are specifically excluded from becoming members of Parliament despite Liberal attempts in this place.
Future members of the House should not be forced to inherit a royal pension. Why should we in the 35th Parliament have the privilege of opting out while it is denied to future members? This may be a question of privilege. The government is attempting to create a two-tier pension scheme: one for members with a
conscience and one for those who want to get as much from the trough as they possibly can.
I was listening to my colleague from Calgary Centre. He gave a very good illustration of the confusion around the pension plan. He said that originally we thought we were to have trough light and trough regular. Now he has found out there are trough regular, trough light and trough stout.
The problem with the bill is that some of us want to abstain altogether. Future MPs will not be allowed that option and that is wrong. The legislation needs to be changed to correct a terrible precedent. The government is attempting to create a two-tier pension scheme: one for members with a conscience and one for those who are out for themselves, those who call themselves number one rather than the Canadian taxpayer who is paying the bill.
There is no reason why all future members should not have the choice of opting out of the pension scheme. It is unacceptable that future Reform members, and there will be many, will have to participate in this outrageous pension plan along with future Liberal members, if there are any.
If the government arranges it so that no members can opt out, I suppose Liberal MPs can continue to show sympathy for overburdened taxpayers who complain about MP pensions without having to make any sacrifices themselves. The only way to solve the problem and clear up the mess is to elect a Reform government and create a modest and a respectable pension plan, one of which we as MPs can be proud. We would not have to hang our heads in shame because we contribute to such a plan and, even worse, collect from such an outrageous plan.
The Liberals know that the way the current severance package works for defeated or retiring members could be affected by exercising the opting out provision of the bill. They knew this yet made no provision for those effects of the legislation. They are trying to place many disincentives for opting out in the way of members wishing to do so. It is nothing more than an attempt to punish members for doing the responsible thing and opting out of a system that is unfair and out of line with the expectations of Canadians.
Canadians are well aware of the ratio of public money to members in the contributions to the plan. They know the current pension plan would contribute $4.1 of taxpayers money for every dollar that members contribute. The minor changes in Bill C-85 move this ratio to $3.6 to $1. That is not much improvement when the number should be $1 to $1. The design of the pension plan is a little less scandalous, a little less immoral, if we follow the provisions of Bill C-85.
Canadians are not happy that they contribute over three and a half times as much as members will to the new scheme. The ratio comes nowhere near the approximate $1 to $1 ratio used in the majority of private pension plans. Canadians are not happy with the souped up benefits for MPs. They want to know what justification exists for this imbalance.