Ten dollars. In other words, for people in Canada to get a message through to Liberal members of Parliament they should line up, pay their $10 and then maybe they will be listened to within the confines of one of those meetings. That seems to be the only place that this kind of communication is actually taking place.
I am relating this young offenders story specifically to this issue. The situation in this House is that within our party, as members of Parliament, we walk around trade fairs and we walk up and down the streets in our constituencies and people approach us saying that this is the issue. I challenge members present to tell me with a straight face that people in their constituencies do not see this as a problem. I cannot comprehend that this is a problem in only 52 constituencies.
One of the problems it has created is when one ends up with the travelling information gathering road shows the government puts on. I should not say that in such a way because it does sound rather denigrating. When the government makes an effort to listen to the people it moves a standing committee around Canada.
As an example, the member for Cape Breton Highlands-Canso went around last fall getting input on social programs. I wonder if there were any walls between him as the chair of that standing committee and the people he was talking to about the downgrading that was going to have to happen with respect to social programs. According to the figures I have in my hand, if he were to resign today he would be eligible for $1,495,663. Yet he in that capacity, in spite of being eligible for $1,495,663, was telling people: "I am sorry, we are going to have to downgrade the social programs".
There is that kind of wall. I appeal to the best sense, if they have best sense, of the people on the other side of the House. I ask them to listen to the people if they ever go to trade shows or if they ever go walking up and down the streets.
If they listened they would hear that the issue is the major barrier between all of us as politicians and ordinary Canadian citizens. It is simply not right that we should be able to have a program three times as generous as can be had in the private sector. It is a wall; it is a barrier. I appeal to members opposite to take another look, to wipe out the existing legislation and go with $1 to $1. Let us get out of the faces of ordinary Canadians and break down the wall.