Perhaps the hon. member personally disagreed with the member for Beaver River when she asked that question in committee. He has a right to disagree with her. I want him to know that the member for Beaver River made that statement. All members of the committee know it and the statement is recorded in the committee transcript. I am sorry if the member disagrees with that proposition. He will have to take it up with the member for Beaver River but I invite him to be cautious when he does so because she can certainly rough him up.
That being said, I will turn to the principle of the bill. Essentially the bill has three components. First, it establishes a minimum age of 55 for receiving a pension on future contributions from the date of proclamation of this bill.
The second component is to officially end double dipping. Mr. Speaker, you and I know perfectly well that since this government has come into office, rule or no rule, we have ended double dipping for any new appointment where a person had previously been eligible for an MP pension. That was done and I congratulate the Prime Minister for that.
The third component is to reduce the accrual rate, which goes beyond the commitment made in the red book but was a good idea. It was done by the President of the Treasury Board in the bill before us today.
Canadians and members have various views of the role of an MP. I heard one member say in debate a couple of weeks ago that the House of Commons should be for people who "have made it". This statement was made by the member for Peace River when he was participating in debate. In other words, people who have accumulated a certain fame, wealth and otherwise have some sort of right to this place superior to that right which the rest of us hold.
I do not agree. Had that been the case, although the number of women in this House is insufficient, it would be far less than what it is today. Although the number of people who come from a disadvantaged milieu is probably lower than what it should be, it would be even less than what it is today if only people who have made it, to use the words of the hon. member for Peace River which are in the Hansard of this House, were the only ones who had a claim to be here.
Mr. Speaker, we are talking about members who come from a more disadvantaged milieu than others. I think that I am entitled to an opinion, coming from such a background myself, as you, Mr. Speaker, and all my colleagues well know.
I have been in this institution for a long while. I began my working life here, not as the assistant to the prime minister, not as the assistant to a minister or to the Leader of the Opposition or to the Speaker of the House, but as a bus boy in the parliamentary restaurant.
At the time, I had not even finished secondary school, which I went on to do later. I went back to school to earn credits, and although I wish I had more education, I did get four years, after starting here as an employee on the bottom rung.
When I ran for election to this place, I had not made it. I do not apologize for that. Constituents elected everyone in this House for all the good reasons they choose to elect members of Parliament. If this House is to be a microcosm of this great country, then people from all backgrounds and milieus have a right to be candidates, not just those who have made it.
Let us go back a little in the history of parliamentary institutions. Some members across the way denigrate the fact that in their view we are a little too close to the traditions of this great place. I do not apologize for that.
I have become in my own way an amateur historian. Our parliamentary institutions date back prior to the Norman invasion of Britain to the witans in the period prior to that. They have evolved all the way in Britain from the invasion and the Magna Carta, the bill of rights and all those other documents, the declaration of rights and so on and in our own country through our Constitution and the precedents in the British House.
I remind the House that in 1829 Daniel Patrick O'Connell was elected to the British House of Commons. His sin, what was wrong with the man, was that he was a Catholic. It was legal and had been for only a few years prior to that for Catholics to vote in Britain but they did not have the right to sit in Parliament. Notwithstanding that, in 1829 the people of Ireland found someone who could do it, who was rich enough, wealthy enough and a Catholic. There were very few of them. He was able to run as a candidate. He defeated a popular cabinet minister to become an MP.
However he was not allowed to sit. He was made to run again in 1830 in order to be reconfirmed. Daniel Patrick O'Connell then took his seat in the U.K. House of Commons but nobody else could do the same. Why? Because there was no salary for members of Parliament. Only the rich, those who had made it, could become members of Parliament and the Catholics and other disadvantaged people could not.
Salaries of members of Parliament should not be such that we get rich. We do not in this House. We should never go back to an era where only people who have made it have a right to claim
that they can sit in this House. All Canadians have the right to be represented.
If this Parliament is going to be the microcosm of this country, as I claim it should be and has a right to be, then all of us have a right to be candidates. Whether that person is a well known lawyer or a professor of law, as I see colleagues across the way, whether that person comes from a different ethnic background, whether that person is a medical doctor, or whether that person is the busboy in the parliamentary restaurant, it is all the same. We have the right to be represented in the Parliament of this country.
In the next few minutes I want to talk about the salaries, benefits and pensions members get. After the Reform Party speeches, how many Canadians would know that since 1952 there has not been one year where the premiums to the pension plan were less than the payout? Every single year the premiums by MPs and the matching contributions were in excess of the payout from the plan.
People imagine a huge deficit in that plan. They do not know that every single year it has had a surplus, not thanks to the Reform Party or their friend they are in bed with, Mr. David Somerville of the National Citizens Coalition. They do not know that. Why do they not know that? Because that does not sell ads in the newspapers. That does not buy ties with little pigs on them for the member for Beaver River and the others who have made a mockery of this institution by doing some of the things they have been doing.
And then these people come to this House complaining about our integrity. They have talked about the new approach to politics. Give me a break. We could comment on the actions of some of these parliamentarians, particularly the Reformers.
Now we hear that MPs are all millionaires when they retire. Hogwash. Since when does someone take pension benefits based on a lifetime, total them up all at once and pretend that everyone is rich? If that were the way, the silly argument could be made by extension that everyone who qualifies for the old age pension is a millionaire. What kind of nonsense is that?
