Mr. Speaker, I will clarify that he did not suggest they were destitute, but he did seem to shed some tears for their situation. Many of those people who are somehow scraping by on less than $29,900 a year are in their fifties, in their forties, and some are even in their thirties. Perhaps they have found themselves a job and they are able to support themselves.
Another comment, which involves the specific point that I wish to address, which is opting out, was made at the start of this whole debate by the chief government whip. The chief government whip used the word hypocrisy. I am really surprised to hear him use that word, given the hypocrisy on the government side over the whole issue of opting out. The opting out is the biggest hypocrisy this government has ever dumped on the floor of the House. If the Liberals were serious about opting out, they would have offered any conditions that could have been offered that did not cost the taxpayers money.
Opting out means a refund of contributions. This is what they are offering. The majority of that refund cannot simply be transferred to an RRSP. Contributions paid by MPs are specifically earmarked for retirement. During the period of contribution MPs are cut off from an RRSP contribution due to the fact that they are participating in a registered plan. The total amount MPs pay into the government plan is less than the amount they would have been allowed to contribute through an RRSP if they were not blocked from doing so.
If the Liberal Party were really interested in saving the taxpayers money, it would make opting out a more attractive alternative. Why is it not doing this? If opting out were handled seriously instead of punitively, the Liberals may find that many of their own members would be opting out, and this would embarrass the government. They cannot have that. What is more, they would run into a situation where suddenly, with so many people opting out, they would have a problem justifying continuing the old plan for those few members who remain and may be forced to give up the lucrative pension for those who are looking forward to this high income for life.
What could they have done? What is the alternative? One alternative is to create a matching RRSP contribution, pure and simple: 50 per cent from the MP and 50 per cent from the government. The advantage to this is that it is $1 to $1 instead of the old $6 to $1, which has only been dropped by half a point in the new proposal. Now they have mixed some accounting magic and say that given the number of people who drop off, we will not count them and we will not count some other things. So they came up with some lower numbers. No matter how they play with it, it is still considerably higher than $1 to $1. That $1 to $1 does not have the potential of any kind of accounting magic whatsoever. It is a real and genuine $1 to $1.
The other advantage of this is the cost to the taxpayer stops when the service to the taxpayer stops. This would be a pure and simple matching during the tenure of the MP, stopping as soon as they no longer served as an MP.
The very minimum the government would offer if they were serious about the opting out would be an amendment to the Income Tax Act that simply allows the pension contribution made by MPs who were opting out to be transferred into an RRSP. This is money that was put aside for the specific purpose of retirement. This would not involve any matching amounts, but would ensure that money MPs have put aside for that purpose continued to be held for retirement purposes.
Then there is the matter of the future opting out. There is none. If this were a serious thing that we should be considering, MPs at any time could either decide if they wanted to get into whatever the pension plan was at the time of their election, or if they found it as distasteful in the future as Reformers find it now then they would have the ability to opt out as well. This is not being offered. Once again, the Liberals are afraid that if too many people start opting out they may be forced to do so as well.
The first speaker today, the chief government whip, started with the word hypocrisy. That is the word I will end with. It is hypocrisy on the part of the government to offer a facade that is really not in the interests of taxpayers. It is only in the interests of those high income Liberal MPs.