Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have the opportunity to speak today on Bill C-85, commonly known as the MP pension plan.
I first have to express my extreme disappointment with this government for using time allocation on a bill such as this. The obvious question we have to ask is why the government did it.
Why did it impose limits on debate on a bill such as this? What is the hurry? We have two years, under normal conditions, before an election is called. Why does the government have to ram this through before the end of this Parliament?
I submit that the Liberals want to get to the bank before the end of the day to cash in and make their big deposit to take advantage of what they just awarded themselves.
What did they award themselves? They awarded themselves an obscene pension plan. In the red book the Liberals outlined that they were going to be reforming this MP pension plan to bring it into line with what the average is in Canada. That simply has not happened here.
I also want to examine the role of the official opposition of Canada in this particular bill. Why would a party whose main goal is to leave this country by separating from Canada want an MP pension plan? They must have some idea that maybe this is going to fail and they are going to be here for a lot longer than they originally expected. As a matter of principle, should this party not say that they are going to use this opportunity to opt out? They want to opt out of Canada but they want to stay within the MP pension plan. Talk about double standards.
We have double standards from the Liberals on the MP pension plan, but I would say there is a complicity here with the Bloc. They also co-operated in the vote on time allocation on this bill. I am really disappointed with Her Majesty's official opposition, or loyal opposition I should say, which is what the word actually is.