Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for bringing this House to order with your usual blend of firmness and tact. As I was saying, the main concern of the constituents I have the privilege to represent was the pensionable age. That is settled in this bill. What we usually refer to as double dipping has also been abolished, at least in the case of federal institutions, and that is a good thing.
I must say I agree with those who feel that with an annual salary of $64,400, parliamentarians are certainly not overpaid. Although we represent as many as 100,000 to 150,000 people, we meet daily with people in various sectors who earn twice or three times our salary. Not that I expect to be paid that much. Besides, our salaries are now frozen. The last Parliament decided to put a freeze on members' salaries. We have no desire to broach a subject that as we saw in the course of this debate, tends to elicit the most outrageous verbal attacks.
The remuneration of parliamentarians will probably remain a contentious issue. It may be advisable to provide for an independent review mechanism. Of course, parliamentarians who think they are being paid too much for what they do can always send part of their salary back to the crown. But ultimately, it will be up to our constituents to decide whether the members they elected to the 35th Parliament gave value for money. Theirs is the ultimate verdict.
Members who were elected and want to make a career in politics have to go before the voters in every election and prove they did the job they were paid to do as parliamentarians. Voters may also ask: Did I get my money's worth? Did my MP really deserve to be paid $64,400? Their judgment may be negative or positive. So there are several criteria we can refer to. We ourselves might feel guilty about getting a salary of $64,400. Or we might not feel guilty, but our constituents may show us the door.
That said, I think there has been a great song and dance with this debate and with others about certain parliamentary benefits and our having it soft on our arrival in Ottawa. I would not say we have it soft. I would say, rather, that we did not come here for the salary. We came, obviously, to serve our fellow citizens as best we could, and they will evaluate our performance one day or another. We are accountable to them alone.
I take this opportunity to point out, Mr. Speaker, and you are no doubt aware of this yourself, that our work as members of Parliament is made so much easier by the clerks, by the pages and by all those, who, often anonymously, almost invisibly, make our work or our life less difficult, given that we arrive at dawn and leave late in the evening for a few hours' rest.
People are always working to put things back in order for our return, without our even noticing. The journals are printed and Hansard is there when it is ready. If we need something, pages are ready to find the documentation we need, the people at the Parliamentary Library find us what we need to do our job and our legislative advisers prepare our amendments.
Today we have thanked the pages and the clerks. I would like to take the opportunity to thank as well those who, often behind the scene, work so efficiently that our often heavy workload seems a little less so.
That being said, when it comes time to vote shortly, having obtained the guarantees we sought and insisted on in the last general election, I will be pleased to vote in favour of the bill currently before the House.