Debates of June 22nd, 1995

Members Of Parliament Retiringallowances Act

[Jay Hill, Reform, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

That is right. The simple answer is no. One would think the government with its penchant for political correctness would want to do the right thing. Unfortunately when Liberals are doing the right thing it

means they are only addressing public perceptions, not reality. These are the Liberal code words for entrenching inequality.

The last time I heard someone use those words in the House it was the Liberal member opposite from Halifax. She said that her government was doing the right thing when defending the inclusion of special protection based on sexual orientation in Bill C-41.

First the Liberals argued that jail terms and community service were supposed to be deterrents. They then told judges to increase sentences if the victim fell into one of the categories listed in section 718.2, such as having a different sexual orientation than the person committing the assault. If longer and harsher sentences are supposed to be a deterrent and certain victims incur those longer sentences, does that not sound like special protection? Does it not smack of inequality when some Canadian lives are worth more than others?

The Liberals are now doing what they call the right thing with MP pensions. They are making cosmetic changes and protecting their own fully indexed MP retirement funds at the same time as they are talking about reducing RRSP contribution levels for other Canadians and pondering how long the Canada pension plan will survive. That sure sounds like a two-tier pension system to me. Every time I hear the phrase doing the right thing from a Liberal it means make some people more equal than others. In this case it is retired MPs.

When a Reformer talks about doing the right thing we mean equality for all Canadians. This means equal protection before the law, equal pay for the same job, equal opportunity and equal treatment of pension plans under the Income Tax Act. Why should MPs be exempted from the pension rules they impose on other Canadians?

During the review of Bill C-85 in the House procedures committee only seven witnesses were heard. I find it incredible that the committee tried to prevent the National Citizens' Coalition and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation from attending. These groups have spent considerable time reviewing MPs pensions and were instrumental in drawing the excesses of the plan to the attention of the media and the public. To deny them the opportunity to speak is unconscionable.

In fact only six witnesses were invited. Not to be thwarted, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation showed up in any event. The committee had no choice but to hear the association or be faced with a major media scandal.

The amazing thing is that even the carefully selected witnesses all agreed this was an extremely generous plan. While proposing an MP RRSP plan one witness said:

You live by the same rules you make for other Canadians.

If MPs were reliant on a similar RRSP pension plan they might be a little more cautious about the laws they pass that will affect all Canadians.

According to the Income Tax Act pension plans must comply with certain criteria to be valid. One such criterion is a limit on the accrual rate. It can be no more than 2 per cent of the final three-year average salary. It is also only payable after the age of 60.

The government is acting as if it has made major concessions in the MP pension plan and in Bill C-85. As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister proudly pointed out, the pension plan will reduce the existing accrual rate by 20 per cent. At first that sounds great. All it really means is that the accrual rate was dropped from 5 per cent to 4 per cent. Yes, that is a 20 per cent reduction, but it is still 100 per cent more than the 2 per cent accrual rate all other Canadians are allowed under the Income Tax Act.

Further, the Income Tax Act states that such a pension scheme is only payable after the age of 60. The government has decided that only applies to other Canadians. Members are eligible at 55.

In the past MPs who served six years were eligible to collect the pension no matter how young they were; 36-year-olds could collect. I would hardly consider that selfless service in the interest of the public good. How many other Canadians receive a substantial pension after six years in the job? Surely it is an indication that the plan has been exceedingly generous for far too long. Moving the age of eligibility to 55, not 60 like the rest of Canadians, is considered a significant step by the government.

I applaud the government on increasing the age of eligibility to age 55, but why did it not go that small step further to 60 so that the MP pension plan complies with the Income Tax Act?

Apparently it will save taxpayers $3.3 million in the first year. How much more will be saved in the future because all Reformers will opt out? More important, the government is acting like taxpayers will continue to realize significant savings. Under the plan taxpayers will contribute $3.60 for every $1 an MP contributes.

There is one promise we intend to keep. When Reform is elected government following the next election, we will really be reforming this travesty into a pension plan that is completely compatible with that of the private sector, and we will be making it retroactive.

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry]

Madam Speaker, I listened attentively to the member's remarks. I point out a couple of items that I believe the member did not include in his speech.

I think all members would agree that serving in the House of Commons is a real privilege and a real honour. If we could afford to be here and work for nothing, I am sure 99 per cent of us would do that. The fact of the matter remains that most of us

need an income to sustain two homes. Most Canadians do not realize that what we make as MPs-

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

The pension does not pay for your home.

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Broadview—Greenwood, ON]

I am going to get to the pensions, just bear with me. I have a couple of minutes here.

Members of Parliament make approximately $14 an hour. By the way, I for one happen to support the member from Calgary, and I say this with no shame, who believes that we are worth $30 an hour. I support that position. But what the Reform Party is missing is that most members of Parliament do not retire from this place. They are defeated.

When you are a defeated member of Parliament, you are usually defeated because you took on causes, went against the wind, and there are a lot of people in your own community after you are defeated, with all your education and previous experience, who will not readily hire you.

I for one have seen many good men and women who have served this House who have been defeated brutally, not through their own work but through party work, and who are out there walking the streets with absolutely no income. I believe that Canadians do not want to see members of Parliament who have served this House well go on welfare after they are defeated. I do not think they want that to happen.

I am all for reviewing the pension fund, but if the Reform Party is going to be straight with Canadians its members have to include, as the member from Calgary has included, in this debate the fact that maybe this plan in some respects could be perceived to be a little generous, but when you take all factors into account after you have been defeated, what bank in Canada or business doing business with a bank would want to hire you after you are defeated in this House?

Being a good member of Parliament in this House means you have to take on causes and go against the wind. The Reform Party, in fairness to this debate, is not including all factors.

[Jay Hill, Reform, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments.

I listened in this House to his defence of this gold plated plan. He seems to believe that when members are ultimately defeated, retire, or quit they end up on skid row. I do not know of any retired MPs who are on skid row or on welfare rolls. I would be interested to know their names if the hon. member is aware of some.

Further, he addressed the whole issue of the salary and the total remuneration package. I said in a speech on this bill that if we are going to address the salary issue, let us address it separately. Let us not confuse pension with salary. That is what the members are saying.

I beg to differ. My hon. colleague from Calgary did not suggest that we should be paid $30 an hour. He suggested that we make the system transparent, that we roll everything in and do not have any special concessions built into the wage package. He said he does not believe we should have tax free allowances, that we should all be the same. That is what he was trying to drive at, and I support that. Let us make the system that pertains to MPs exactly the same as for all the rest of Canadians. Let us have a transparent system. We pay taxes the same as everyone else, and we should not have a two-tiered pension plan in this country.

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, this debate is not about money. So far all I have heard is about money and how much this will save the taxpayers. This debate is about integrity, and integrity means honesty.

The Reform Party of Canada is the only party in this House that says the pension plan is still too generous, notwithstanding the changes. It is four times better than the private sector, seven times better than any other public sector pension plan. Because of this and on principle, we are opting out. It would be hypocritical of us to accept it after having criticized it. We believe in what we are saying and we are prepared to act.

The Liberal government's feeble response has been Bill C-85, which effectively ends double dipping and raises the qualifying age for a pension to 55. It also increases the amount of time an MP has to serve to receive a maximum pension of 75 per cent-5 per cent better than the private sector-of the best six years of earnings. In 19 years MPs will now get 75 per cent of their salary in pension, rather than 15, as it was before, rather than the 35 to 40 years it takes anybody in this gallery, anybody who is not down at this level, to receive a pension plan. That is the difference, and that is why it is too lucrative.

The generous pensions MPs are paid are almost universally viewed as reasonable compensation for the fact that we do not pay members of Parliament enough in salaries. This is the Liberal government view, and this is the view that has resulted in two undesirable patterns in Canadian politics. First, it is difficult to attract top calibre candidates because the pay is not high enough. Forget about idealistic arguments that elected office is a higher calling and that people should be prepared to make sacrifices to serve. The reality is that they have mortgages to pay and families to feed too.

Second, big pensions at the end of the rainbow tend to make politicians acutely aware of the need to be re-elected. That generates more survival mode thinking and less commitment to tackle the tough issues and do what is right for constituents and the nation.

I would like to read a letter to the editor that I saw in the Financial Post written by an individual named Paul Arnold, from Victoria. This was on the heels of my comments during debate on this bill at second reading when I talked about how we should be looking at the whole remuneration package, not just the pension separately and justifying the high pension based on the low salary. This is ``Some straight talk on MPs' pensions'':

We should extend thanks to Reform Party MP Jim Silye for having the courage to expose the deceptive way in which MPs pay themselves with our tax dollars, and for opening the door to a long overdue public debate on this sensitive issue.

Professional politicians such as Jean Chrétien and Sheila Copps often grumble about how hard they work and how underpaid they are. Neither, however, likes to talk very much about their tax free expense accounts, their litany of perks and special privileges or, above all, their lucrative gold plated pension plan that in Copps's case will be worth millions of dollars.

Silye is simply saying that MPs should be compensated fairly for the work they do. They should receive a salary that is comparable to others in both the public and private sectors with similar workloads and responsibilities. Their salaries should be transparent and all hidden tax free expense accounts, perks, privileges and gold plated pensions should be eliminated entirely.

Most Canadians do not object to paying our elected officials well for doing what must be a very demanding and stressful job. They want MPs to plan for their own retirements by investing in RRSPs, just like the rest of us. What Canadians detest is the underhanded way that MPs feed at the public trough and the way the taxpayers keep retired MPs living in the lap of luxury for the rest of their lives.

There are 205 rookies in this Parliament. It is not their fault this pension plan and its method of distribution is in its current state. However, it disappoints me that the 205 rookies in this Parliament could have done something about it. I cannot believe the rookies on that side allowed 70 veteran MPs to walk away from this House and within 30 days of leaving they will start to receive their pensions. Why are they not ruled the same way? Why is it the class of '88 gets to opt out, our class gets to opt out, but future classes do not get to opt out? All future MPs should have the choice to opt out as well.

A transparent, taxable salary could replace the current compensation or remuneration of an MP. Here is this low salary that MPs receive that the President of the Treasury Board uses to justify this high goldplated pension plan. This is what he says is too low and why we need this pension plan. Here is what MPs receive: a taxable salary of $64,400; a tax free allowance of $21,300, which is equivalent to a pretax value of $42,600 if we make it transparent and taxable; the tax free travel status of $6,000. These are tax free benefits. In the private sector, of which I was a part two years ago, my company and I had to pay taxes on these benefits.

We in this House do not have to pay taxes on the following benefits: free VIA Rail pass; free personal long distance telephone calls; free health and dental package; free parking; free air travel for family; free insurance policy with spouse and dependent children; free second language lessons; a severance payment of $32,000 when defeated or retired; a re-entry allocation of $9,000 when defeated or retired.

On top of that is the lucrative, double standard, gold plated MP pension plan for a six-year member, worth between $500,000 and $4.5 million, depending upon the years of service, and valued at $28,000 per year by the independent consulting group Sobeco, Ernst & Young in February 1994.

This is why I believe MPs, notably the class of '88 and the class of '93 and all future classes, should have the right to opt out. A remuneration committee should be struck, with no MPs on the committee, and the mandate of the committee on behalf of all Canadians should be to set and establish a transparent taxable salary for MPs, which includes all expenses that can be receipted, and a pension plan of a certain amount that MPs will themselves look after.

The mistake I made when I gave a dollar figure of $150,000 was that that is self-serving. It is not my place and it should not be my place to set the amount. It should be done at arm's length by an independent body. There are some good groups out there that could do that. That is why I criticized the 205 rookies-or the 150 rookies, because Reform rookies are doing what they said they would do.

Let us fix it. The Liberals have an opportunity to fix it, and that would be the way to do it. We would get the public off the backs of MPs. We would restore integrity to politicians, because they would be paid a salary and benefits the Canadian public agrees with. They would not set it themselves; it would be set by an independent body. That would include the salary, benefits, and a pension plan that MPs could look after. That is how the problem could be solved, and we would not be yelling across the floor at each other about what is going on.

On an overall compensation and remuneration package, we have argued long and strong on this side of the House that the pension plan is far too generous. It has to be reduced and brought into line with the private sector. That is what Canadians and Reformers want. That is what Reformers are promising and that is why Reformers are opting out. We are putting our money where our mouths are.

We really believe that all members who do not opt out, those who had the opportunity to opt out, will be voted out, because they are treating themselves on a different level and on a different standard from the rest of Canadians. We are no better than the rest of Canadians. We are serving Canadians. If we

really want to serve Canadians, we should accept the amount that would be given by an independent board.

I think the MP pension plan should definitely be looked at and reviewed and brought into line with that of the private sector.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest and I want to address at least one point the member has raised.

He continues to suggest in the House that the expense allowance members of Parliament receive should be doubled and added to salary. This is absolutely a wrong approach. The member is slowly back pedalling. He has said in the House on many occasions that all the benefits should go away and members of Parliament should be paid $150,000 a year. He justifies that by saying that the expenses somehow should be doubled to be on a pretax basis and added to salary.

In fact what the member has failed to realize is that if expenses were added to salary it would be the same as telling a travelling salesman who received a $5,000 reimbursement for his housing, travel, and lodging that somehow he should get $10,000 added to salary instead of being reimbursed for the expenses.

Members of Parliament do have legitimate expenses: a second housing allowance, travel, food, et cetera, all of which are part of doing this job. They are reimbursement of expenses.

Perhaps the member would like to calculate what the equivalent pretax would be. What he has failed to do is understand that all the expenses incurred by members of Parliament would be deductible for tax purposes against that salary. In fact the amount of $150,000 represents a 30 per cent salary increase to members of Parliament as proposed by the Reform Party.

I simply ask the hon. member for Calgary Centre if he would explain to the House why he believes we should change our pension plan to make it the same as the private sector's and why is the Reform Party recommending a 30 per cent salary increase to members of Parliament?

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, we have an issue where, on the basis of a low salary, the government tries to justify a high pension. I have tried to take a look at the complete remuneration package of MPs, which includes the so-called low salary and the pension. If we add them together what do we get? It is too low on the one end and too high on the other. Why not bring them together and look at it that way?

As far as the doubling up of expenses, that $21,300 is called an expense allowance but all the members who live in Ottawa and the surrounding area get it and they do not have two residences. I use all the expense money because I live in Calgary and I have a residence here. According to Sobeco, Ernst & Young, not all of that expense money is used up. However, that is not really the issue.

The issue is we should come clean and say: "To be a member of Parliament this is your job description and this is the head office. You come from all across Canada to work in the head office. If you come here we will pay you this much in a transparent taxable salary. Receipt your expenses and we will reimburse you. Within that benefit package we will give you some of these benefits, like a life insurance policy, a health and dental policy, parking, and the value of that is determined by-"

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Why are you recommending $150,000?

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

I should not have recommended a number. If it were $150,000 the net amount we would get is $75,000 to look after everything, all expenses, the second residence and everything else.

What the hon. member gets right now is about $72,000 net. He is within $3,000 of that same figure. I can show that based on the total compensation package.

The solution is not to keep defending this gold plated, trough regular, trough light and trough stout plan. Even members of the government do not understand the pension plan. They keep defending it rather than asking how they can fix it. I have put forward a suggestion and a solution. The pension plan is too generous. Get rid of it. Make it no better than the private sector's. That is what Canadians want. That is what we have to do. Listen to what Canadians have said and do that.

If we do that there is a problem with the rest of the equation and we will have to fix it. However, there will be another time to talk about remuneration. We have to bring one down and bring out all of the perks which are under the table.

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry]

Madam Speaker, it was not my intention to participate in this debate but as I was listening to Reform members I could not believe they were not discussing some of the other relevant factors in the debate.

Before the member for Calgary Centre leaves I would like to make sure I understood his quote accurately that the person who wrote the article said members of Parliament should receive a salary commensurate with what they would receive in the private sector. The member nodded that is what this article stated.

That is an interesting point to debate. From the same Financial Post last week we saw a list of the top 100 executives in Canada and what they made. For members who did not see the article I will give some highlights. The top executive in Canada, my former employer Mr. Stronach from Magna, made approxi-

mately $14 million. The last one on the list received approximately $1 million.

Of the top 100 executives in Canada, the men and women given judgment by their peers to be the top 100 in terms of their business accomplishments, achievements and contributions to the community, the lowest paid makes $1 million and the highest approximately $14 million.

In no way, shape or form do I want to suggest the salaries in the House should be commensurate with the top 100 executives in Canada. However, I believe the work we do in this board room is every bit as important as the work those executives do in the private sector. Our responsibilities are as great. There are a lot of men and women in the country who if they were in the private sector would probably be in that top 100.

There are men and women in the Chamber whom I have watched in committee and in the House. I have watched them travel the country and the world. They work harder than a lot of the top 100 executives. A lot of the top 100 executives could not keep up with most members of Parliament.

The Reform Party is trying to depreciate the contribution the men and women of the Chamber make on behalf of their constituents and on behalf of their country. The member for Calgary Centre said let us have integrity, let us be transparent. He talked about free rail passes, that we have plane tickets to travel Canada and that we have a telephone code in order to make long distance calls. He tried to spin that these are perks.

These are not perks. These are tools the men and women in the Chamber need to do their job. How many of us in the Chamber have ever used our rail passes? This is my second term as an MP and I think I have used my rail pass once to go from Ottawa to Toronto. I would like to get on the train instead of taking a fast ride to Vancouver to give a speech. I would love to have the luxury of taking a week to get there and a week to get back on our rail system, what is left of it. However, a lot of us do not have the luxury to enjoy the rail pass the way the member for Calgary Centre tried to insinuate.

This whole notion of depreciating the work members of Parliament do is really not fair. It is fair to debate the notion the pension plan might be perceived as too high or too generous but I do not when we consider the whole package involved.

On the notion in the Financial Post which someone in the private sector wrote to the member about salaries being commensurate with the private sector's, what member of Parliament will lead the campaign that we want $.5 million a year for all members of Parliament? They would be dead.

I have had a lot of experience in the private sector and I have met most of those people in the top 100. A lot of members of Parliament are worth every nickel of the $.5 million a year if we want to compare them to the contributions those top 100 executives make.

If we are to be fair and constructive in this debate we should include all factors and we should not mislead Canadians. Rail passes and plane passes are not there as perks. They are there for us to go out and give speeches, listen to people in all parts of the country. We do not serve only our own communities in the Chamber, we serve coast to coast. That is why we have those instruments. To spin them as perks I do not think is responsible.

[Nick Discepola, Liberal, Vaudreuil, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to participate in the discussion on Bill C-85, a bill which lives up to our red book commitments and goes beyond.

The bill makes important reforms to MP pension arrangements and has the effect of lowering the costs to taxpayers of the plan by some 33 per cent. The bill proposes a package of what are essentially cutbacks to one element of parliamentarians' compensation, our pension plan. Because the other elements of our package remain frozen they could not be used for any offsetting adjustments.

Members today are being asked to accept a pensionable age of 55 and a 20 per cent reduction in our pension formula for our future service. I believe this is a fair bargain. I hope members will join me in supporting the bill.

The changes to the pension arrangements contained in Bill C-85 are being proposed after somewhat long and careful study. Part of this was carried out through the review process set up under the Parliament of Canada Act. Under this act a commission is required to be established after each federal election to review the adequacy of MP compensation and allowances.

The most recent commission established in January 1994 was headed by the Hon. Charles Lapointe and made its report in July 1994. Even before the Lapointe commission report, however, a special study of parliamentarians' compensation had already been commissioned by the prior government. This study was carried out by Sobeco, Ernst & Young, a reputable Montreal consulting firm. Its report was tabled in Parliament in February 1994 and was then referred to the Lapointe commission for review.

Sobeco, Ernst & Young examined several elements, including the questioning of the basic principles governing parliamentarians' pensions. They also suggested a number of discussion topics, such as tying sessional indemnities to parliamentarians' private income and rates of pay to their performance.

The government welcomes these two reports on the whole issue of parliamentarians' compensation and allowances. As part of this study, not only were extensive consultations carried out with citizen groups, business associations, compensation experts and other stakeholders, but present and former members were also consulted. Throughout the process, the objective was to come up with a series of changes which would be fair and, while alleviating taxpayers' concerns, would continue to meet the needs of members.

Let me first quote a few of the recommendations contained in the independent report presented by Sobeco, Ernst & Young, which reviewed the entire parliamentarian compensation scheme.

This study looked at each aspect of our compensation package, from sessional indemnities through pensions, insurance, health benefits and travel. A value was assigned to each component which in turn allowed the consultants to value the total package. The components and package were then compared with the compensation packages provided in other Canadian jurisdictions, public and private, and in selected international jurisdictions. When total compensation is taken into account and compared to similar occupations in private and public sectors, the study noted that MPs' compensation exceeds that of managers in all companies but as was pointed out it is still less than executives.

Both the general feelings and the formal comparisons arising from the study support the position that parliamentarians' basic salaries are relatively modest but our pension arrangements are overall too generous.

The study recommended a realignment of our expense allowance to include an accommodation allowance and an accountable expense portion. It recommended minor changes to the travel benefits, insurance benefits and career transition provisions. At the same time it recommended that the pension plan be scaled back essentially to levels more commonly found in the private sector. The study also recommended increasing the salary of an MP from the current $64,400 to $88,500.

Mr. Speaker, it is important to note that the consultants recognized however that it may not be the right time, in the present situation, to vote the salary increases they were recommending. At any rate, they indicated that the proposed decrease in the retirement plan, if approved, would necessitate an increase in wages so that the overall compensation level would remain the same.

A true pension plan must have a retirement pension goal guaranteeing a revenue replacement target at retirement which does not depend on investment return over the accumulation period, salary increases or in some cases, age of retirement. Such an objective may be reached only through a defined benefit plan because employer's contributions can be applied to level the fluctuations in retirement pensions resulting from variations in investment returns over the years.

The consultants' bottom line recommendation on this issue is that if the Canadian public's concerns were that pension costs were too high, the solution should be to reduce the cost by reducing benefits rather than to replace the plan with a retirement savings plan which had no clear income replacement goals.

As the hon. members probably noticed when they read Bill C-85, this is the solution advocated by the Treasury Board president. The measures contained in this bill will help reduce costs to taxpayers substantially.

Sobeco, Ernst & Young also made recommendations on double dipping. As the hon. members know, the bill before us provides for major restrictions in that regard.

The pension payable to former members who receive, in respect of a federal position, a salary or fee paid through the CRF or appropriations will be reduced or cancelled if they earn more than $5,000 per year from that job.

As my final comment on the Sobeco, Ernst & Young report, I would like to read what the consultants considered an important goal in setting parliamentarians' compensation: "MPs' compensation should contribute to making members proud to serve their country and convinced that their financial reward for doing so is fair and to making Canadians in turn satisfied with the levels paid to their representatives". I think all members can endorse this goal.

As I indicated earlier, the Sobeco, Ernst & Young report was subsequently referred to the Lapointe commission. Traditionally that commission has not looked at issues such as pension benefits. Nevertheless, it did so on this occasion. The Lapointe commission made recommendations in two main areas, first, the area of MPs' and senators' compensation and second, in the matter of the public's attitude about parliamentarians' compensation overall.

Like the Sobeco study before it, the author noted that there was a great deal of misunderstanding and lack of knowledge about the compensation paid to parliamentarians. Like Sobeco, the Lapointe commission also recommended an increase in sessional indemnities to take effect as soon as the salary freeze is lifted in 1997.

The commission recommended replacement of our tax free allowances with fully accountable capped expense accounts. As hon. members know, the bill before us adopts the recommendation of the Lapointe commission and sets age 55 as the pensionable age under the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act. The Lapointe commission agreed with Sobeco that incidents of double dipping would be greatly reduced through imposition of a pensionable age and that no additional measures

were needed. However, our government does not agree. That is why Bill C-85 has a provision which eliminates double dipping.

These studies should be a great source of inspiration. They identify all the factors to consider and the areas where adjustments are required. However, the fact that fiscal restraint is still the order of the day gives the President of the Treasury Board little leeway in making changes to the members' compensation scheme. Not only would a decrease in our retirement benefits be unfair to us if it were not offset by some adjustment, but it would make public office much less attractive in the future.

On this side of the House we believe that the proposed reduction in our future benefits of 20 per cent and the reduction of taxpayers' costs by one-third have gone a considerable way to reforming our pension plan in a period when the government is committed to maintaining the wage freeze for parliamentarians.

The Lapointe commission's final pension recommendation concerned the contribution rate to the pension plan which it recommended should be reviewed. Bill C-85 recognizes that members' pension benefits will be reduced in the future and sets a revised member contribution rate of 9 per cent of session indemnities and additional salary if applicable.

In conclusion, it is clear that Bill C-85 meets many of the objectives outlined in the Lapointe commission report. We could have gone further but I believe we have met our red book commitments and gone beyond them. Maybe it is not to the satisfaction of everyone, but we have accepted much of the advice of many who have spoken on the reform of MP pensions. This bill is proof positive that we have kept our promises.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, a very wise man once said that when you are in a hole and you want to get out, the first thing you should do is to stop digging. It is interesting to hear members opposite speak today and try to validate the change to the MP gold plated pension plan when in actual fact what they should probably do is to just stop digging. Some members and Canadians have deemed this to be an unjust and unfair form of remuneration, when in actual fact it should be a pure pension plan. We should separate salary and pension.

I would like to ask the member a question regarding the actuarially sound propositions in the pension plans, the old and the new proposition being put forward for consideration of the House.

The Liberals have done some things. They have reduced the rate at which the benefits accumulate from 5 per cent to 4 per cent. They have also reduced the amount members actually pay into the pension plan from 11 per cent to 9 per cent.

In looking at the plan we should try to figure out if it is actuarially sound. I think all members of the House and all Canadians would agree that something we at least owe the public of Canada is to make sure the program is actuarially sound. Witnesses stated before the committee that to make it actuarially sound we should be paying in close to 30 per cent. I believe the figure was between 26 per cent and 30 per cent.

How can the member square this with his constituents when what we are doing with this plan is making the taxpayer pick up the difference? We should be paying approximately 26 per cent to make it actuarially sound.

[Nick Discepola, Liberal, Vaudreuil, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have no problem standing here before my constituents and supporting Bill C-85 because during the election we campaigned on the question of pension reform. I will save members the trouble of reading the red book commitment, and hopefully they have read it. Two issues came up time and time again.

One was the age. I agree totally that no one should be able to retrieve a pension right after leaving office, despite the fact that the average tenure in the Chamber is less than six years. In private industry the normal vesting period is two years. In our case it is six years and the majority of us do not receive the pension plan. The Bloc Quebecois, for example, has stated categorically that it is not interested in the debate because its members do not plan to be here in six years.

The contribution which we make as MPs has been substantially reduced. It has decreased from 5 per cent to 4 per cent. Our contributions have been decreased from 11 per cent to 9 per cent. That will save taxpayers over $3 million a year, which amounts to 33 per cent of the cost.

We have done our share. I will have no qualms justifying that to my constituents in the next election campaign. I will be proud to stand and justify my contribution to the constituents of Vaudreuil. I guarantee to members of the Reform Party that I will be here after the next election because my constituents have confidence in me.

It is not a single issue which will dictate whether a member will return to the House. The Reform Party has chosen minor issues such as this one to make big political gains. It might work. I wish Reform members luck. But by George, if we had expended half of the energy that we have in this debate on the real

problems which face the country, such as job creation and growth, we would have been much better off.

I am glad this is the last day of debate on the bill. I wish Reform members a merry summer as they travel to the east exploiting some aspects of the bill for their own political gain and I wish them luck in their recruitment process for the Reform Party.

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Madam Speaker, it gives me pleasure to speak on Bill C-85. I will be splitting my time with the member for Fraser Valley West.

Major problems exist in Canada. There is the debt and the deficit. There is the criminal justice system and all the reforms which are necessary. There is parliamentary reform, which rates fairly high with Canadians. We certainly need to look at the other place; all of us would agree many changes are required there. Free votes. Recall of MPs so we can get rid of the bad ones. Referenda. Those are the issues people are talking about. The other things they are talking about are things which are not compatible with what they see as being fair. Certainly MP pensions fit into that category.

Canadians are now very aware that over the last number of years we have built a $553 billion debt and that the debt deepens by $110 million per day. By the time the next election comes the country will be another $100 billion in debt.

When those are the problems, Canadians do not want us to waste our time talking about things like pensions and how we are going to take care of members of Parliament. We have wasted our time talking about things like gun control, quotas, the $2 coin and the minor changes we will make to the pension plan. People are saying there are some big problems which we should be addressing. Canadians are asking us to get on with the job of addressing those problems.

When talking about the pension plan Canadians ask how the Liberals can justify the pension. How do they do that? What do the Liberals say when they are in the House of Commons to justify their pension plan? Let us look at the kinds of things we have heard during the debate.

First, we have heard about the red book. The red book says that we are going to change the pension plan. The Liberals say they have done that. They have made the eligibility age 55. The rest of the country of course is looking at 65, 67 and a much higher age in the future. Double dipping is not allowed any more. "Big deal", is what most people will say about that. They say they have gone further than what they had planned. I think the Reform Party can take some credit for that.

We hear: "When you leave one job, you are going to have a hard time finding another one". I believe that if one has done his or her job here one will probably have an easier time finding another job. The people here who have done a good job will be sought after by industry.

What about job security? That is a little hard to sell as well. In what other job does one find security any more? If people do their jobs they will have security, which is what we should have here.

Members have said that when they leave their jobs this pension is compensation for a low salary. It has been made very clear by the member for Calgary Centre that there are other parts to this job. All Canadians are asking for is to have things up front. They want to know what MPs get.

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In view of the fact that Bill C-85 is such an important issue, I wonder if it might be in order to ask a few of the Liberals to attend in this House.

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Maheu)]

The hon. member knows very well that we do not refer to the presence or absence of any member. I would like to reiterate something I mentioned this morning. Because of the emotional issue we are dealing with, we could deal with it more calmly.

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

Madam Speaker, I do not see a quorum.

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Maheu)]

I do not see a quorum.

And the count having been taken:

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Maheu)]

The hon. member for Red Deer.

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is amazing how that works. It certainly is nice to give a speech to somebody. It makes my point about democracy and how little there is of that in this House as we have gone on.

I would like to go back to the pension and how Liberals justify it. I have pointed out that this attempt at justifying the pension plan is going to fall on deaf ears. I think to the next election and about bringing up the trough charts that will be available as we show who is at the trough and what sorts of benefits there will be.

I also think about that PC candidate who is going to say: "I cannot opt out of the plan". I think of the Liberal and NDP who will say: "Our party did not opt out of the plan". I also think of the position we are going to be in when we say: "We all opted out of the plan when given that opportunity".

An article in today's Gazette is interesting. It states that the voters will not forgive MPs for keeping their lavish pensions. This is where it is really at. By voting themselves reduced but still lavish pensions this week, many Liberal MPs might be signing their own political death warrants. I guess we should say

hurrah for that and right on because that certainly is going to help our campaign.

The public is not stupid. The public knows what is happening. The public has sent the message that it should come from the constituency to Ottawa and that is where the message has to be. It is a clear message. The message on pensions is that they are too rich, too gold plated. Eighty per cent of Canadians are saying that. That is what the polls are saying about the MP gold plated pension plan. They do not believe that the party knows best. They do not believe that this is a fair item.

For the member for Kingston and the Islands who brings out his green book, his little, little green book, I have a little, little red book. If I might paraphrase from this little, little red book concerning the topic of punishment of backbenchers, it says that MPs must learn to stop listening to the views of their constituents and remember their loyalty is to the party. That is exactly what the message in the pension plan is, loyalty to the party.

So we will quote from this little, little red book because this little, little red book-

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Maheu)]

Could I ask the member to keep his objects on his desk please.

[Bob Mills, Reform, Red Deer, AB]

The member from Kingston certainly holds his little, little green book up. I thought with all of his experience I could do it as well.

This lack of democracy, this lack of listening to people, is probably the biggest concern I have. Let us look at the pension plan without mixing it up with salaries and other things. Its clause by clause study was done in 12 minutes.

Look at the committee hearings where so much is done. We invite selected guests and give them one day to tell us what we want to hear. They would not even tell us what the government wanted to hear. So there are no amendments of substance and if there are they are defeated by the powers that be, by the Madam Speaker dictatorship that rules this House.

We now have a two-tier system being proposed, a trough lite and a trough regular. The trough regular gives us figures that are unimaginable. We have members who would get $4 million if they were to retire and live to age 75. They could never get that in the private sector. The pension plan is three and one-half times greater than one could get in the private sector.

The public is not saying that members do not deserve a pension. They are saying we should make it the same as we could get in the private sector. They are not saying-

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Maheu)]

I am sorry, the hon. member's time has expired.

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have to sometimes apologize for my colleagues because I want to give credit where credit is due. Some credit should be given to the Liberal Party.

When I was flying to Ottawa a couple of weeks ago I met this fellow on the plane who said: "I want to give credit where credit is due to the Liberals because they made me a millionaire". I said: "A millionaire, so why are you so sad and forlorn? What were you before?" He replied that he had been a multimillionaire. It brings me back to this pension plan to ask: "Who is becoming the millionaire, the businessman or the member of Parliament from the Liberals or this separatist group over here?"

I am wearing an appropriate tie today. It has some little piggies on it. It reminds me of the poem I learned in grade three when I was 22 or so. It goes:

This little piggy went to the pension market over here And this little piggy can buy a new home And this little piggy buys the best of roast beef But all these little piggies will ultimately get none

That is my little piggy story. If the government thinks we are kidding it had better bear in mind the word retroactive because when the next election comes and the present government is out, we will be back visiting Bill C-85.

I have listened to a lot of things in this House of Commons during this past session. The other day when the Prime Minister-he has done this numerous times but I am speaking of recently-stood up in the House of Commons he had the nerve to compare himself with a hockey player to justify this fat cat pension plan. It was absurd for the chief politician in Canada.

Why these folks over there try to mix salary and pension is beyond me. There are people like the President of the Treasury Board, who should know better and who also will pick up a good pension. Why are they not listening to the people, through the Reform Party, through all the contacts that they have, through all the organizations in this country, about pensions? I will never know. It is certainly not a populist organization at all.

One member recently in making a comment to one of my colleagues suggested that my colleague should resign if he does not like the pension plan. I think the shoe should be on the other foot. This group should resign for putting in the pension plan. If they will not resign we will be back talking in a couple of years through an election.

For years as I was growing up I was concerned about political remoteness. When I lived in Atlantic Canada I heard that when I was a young man and later when I moved to British Columbia. Everyone you talk to talks about political remoteness and how Ottawa does not resemble what is really going on in the country.

This pension plan is just so representative of that political remoteness.

During the election campaign in my riding there were three big issues: the economy, the criminal justice system and the pension plan. Even before the election, I decided to opt out of the pension plan, as my colleagues have. I still kept thinking about this political remoteness.

When we talk about things here in the House of Commons from day to day, you cannot understand for instance these separatists who come into this House wanting and agreeing with a pension plan. I think it is absurd enough that they are getting a salary, much less asking for a pension plan at a cost to hard working Canadian citizens.

I also wonder why it is that the Liberals keep hanging on to this and why it is they try to keep mixing it up with the statement that we are not paid enough, we need a future, we need a pension plan. I cannot understand how they are missing the boat. I guess it is political remoteness. They just do not understand.

Three bills have just gone through the House-this is the last one-where the government has restricted debate and enforced time limitation. They were Bill C-68, the gun law; Bill C-41, commonly known now as the hate law, and sex crimes too if we consider sexual orientation; and Bill C-85. All three are on very important issues and the government has the audacity to limit debate.

Some of the other bills which have gone through are just plain useless but government members debated and debated and debated. When it comes down to the three important bills which the government has goofed up on it limits debate. When we talk about political remoteness it is here in this House.

If the government thinks for a moment that this Reform Party is going away, it is just starting and it is growing. It is growing in Ontario, it is growing in Atlantic Canada. The government can stick to its polls. It tried that in the last election and there were 52 Reform MPs brought here. The government can stick to its polls but it will not work. The Liberals are going to the same Jurassic Park as that other group did. That is where they are going.

What is wrong with a plan that is no better than other people get; a one for one contribution? What is wrong with that? Why must they have more? What is in it for them? What is not in it for the taxpayer? People in my community do not understand it, yet Liberals say they represent people all across Canada. It is political remoteness.

I have seen here problems with ethics, problems with integrity and problems with arrogance to the hilt. However the real problem in the House is a four-letter word called greed. It can be called nothing better than that.