Mr. Speaker, I will tell the Reform Party a little story.
In 1975 I was elected to the Ontario legislature and served for ten years. Because I was self-employed, when I retired I assumed it would be a very simple process to pick up the pieces where I had left off and re-enter the career I had left. However, I discovered it took four years to regenerate the income level I had prior to my retirement from public life. I suggest to members of the Reform Party that unless they are farmers the transition back to private life will not be nearly as simple as it seems. I say that with all sincerity. I say that to defend the pension plan and the pension reform.
Why do we have a pension plan at all? We could accept the $150,000 a year the member for Calgary Centre is proposing. I am sure the people of Canada are not ready to embrace that concept. I suppose if all members of the House wanted to accept that salary and do away with the pension plan entirely I have no complaints. We can do it that way.
The pension plan was set up to ease the return to private life, and also the severance package members get at the end of their service. It was done to recognize we are here generally during the highest earning years of our life. The longer we are here and the older we get, the more difficult it is to resume the practice we had before.
We could take this right to the extreme. We could return to the old ways when members did not get paid at all, no pension. The requirement was that one had to be independently wealthy to serve or one had to have a patron. I am not sure the people of Canada are ready for patronage of that kind again. That is the way it was.
The idea of a pension plan was to allow people of modest means to participate in the life of the country. It was no longer then the sole preserve of the elite.
Right now there are approximately 600 former members of the House. Approximately 400 never qualified for any kind of pension whatsoever. They did not serve long enough to qualify. The pension is being delivered to approximately 200 former members of the House.
The Reform Party criticized the plan on one hand and on the other hand some of its representatives, at least one for use, said do the same thing another way, in spades, $150,000 a year. It is interesting but we cannot walk both sides of the street on this issue.
I am a strong supporter of pension plans for members of Parliament for the reasons I have outlined. Whether the package is too rich is a matter of debate. We decided it should be modified somewhat. We also decided it was essential to preserve it. Sooner or later all of us here will not be here any more. All of us will face a new reality as we go on to resume our lives or go on to new lives.
All the populist rhetoric in the world does not allow us to escape from that reality. I know it has been very popular to zero in on MP perks, as they are called. I have not found any yet but I am still looking. It annoys me to no end. The reality is if pensions are done away with the next generation of members will make a decision based on whether there is security at the end of its tenure. If there is limitation on the availability of standing for election the quality of governing will decline remarkably.
It was done for a reason. We have taken a lot of brickbats because the pension plan exists. I think that is due to a general lack of understanding of the reality. There is even a lack of understanding that the pension plan as we have it is contributory, that we actually contribute a portion of our own salaries to the plan.
I support the bill we are debating today. I support the changes being made. However, I think we should all very seriously consider the realities of life and not just the populism that we think everyone wants to hear.