Debates of June 8th, 1995

Members Of Parliament Retiringallowances Act

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Order. I might have missed something. Try to keep that to a bare minimum. I would ask the co-operation of all colleagues to make their interventions through the Chair.

[Werner Schmidt, Reform, Okanagan Centre, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, phone calls should be done that way as well.

The present proposal introduced a two tiered pension system, those who were elected before 1993 and those who were elected in the 1993 election. Two kinds of pension plans are operating. That is an unfairness in itself. Why should one group of MPs be treated differently from those who are coming up?

I want to illustrate exactly how obscene the benefits of this plan are. Here is a list of the top 10 takers under the new plan as proposed by Bill C-85 so everyone recognizes what we are talking about here. The figures are estimated on nine years as ministers and living to age 75. These are the people who qualify under those categories, assuming also a 5 per cent inflation rate per year.

The hon. member for Sherbrooke will collect $4.5 million. It so happens that this individual is also the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. The member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte will get $3.9 million. He happens also to be the minister of fisheries. The member for Cape Breton-East Richmond will get $3.6 million. The member for Burnaby-Kingsway will get $3.5 million. The member for Winnipeg Transcona will get $3.3 million. The member for York West, who happens to be the minister of immigration, will get $3.1 million. The member for York South-Weston will get $2.7 million. The member for Hamilton East, the Deputy Prime Minister, will get $2.5 million. The member for Papineau-Saint Michel will get $2.6 million and the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell will get $2.1 million.

Where is any other Canadian with a normal income and the usual kinds of productivity going to get that kind of pension? I submit to the House that the witnesses who appeared before the committee stated that it is not going to happen.

The President of the Treasury Board said that this is a significant change and reduction, which is a lot of bafflegab and clever but very misleading words. It is hypocrisy under the guise of an election promise.

I could not help, as I was preparing some of my notes, to think about a nursery rhyme that I learned. It goes something like this. It fits this hypocrisy beautifully. It says: "Little Jack Horner sat in the corner, eating his pudding and pie, he stuck in his thumb, pulled out a plum and said what a good boy am I". I could not help but think about the Liberals sitting in their places, looking and revising their pension plan. They stick in their hand and they pull out a gold plum and say what a good Liberal am I.

That is not all. In the final analysis it is the victory of greed and self-interest over common sense and responsible leadership. That is the saddest part of it all. Where is the leadership? Where is the example for our young people? Where is the example of responsible expenditure of public funds?

We are supposed to be the guardians and to treat taxpayers' money as funds kept in trust on their behalf and to expend them in their best interest. However, what do some MPs do? They say: "Please cut back and be responsible, but not us as MPs. We are just fine and should be given a little more. Our pensions should be cut a little but not too much. We have to make a lot of money after all we gave up".

I do not think there is a single MP in the House who did not calculate very carefully what the cost to come here would be. Some looked at the pension plan and said: "Wait a minute. That is a freebie. That would be great for me to have". That has

become the issue and is not a measure of productivity. It happens after years of productivity here.

There is a serious lack of leadership. We need to get our leadership back into focus. We must become examples to young people and to other citizens.

Let us examine some of the great and wonderful benefits. I return to the point I made earlier about the President of the Treasury Board saying that we have been forced into it. He said that we should look after the interests of our families for the future.

If anybody in the House is looking after family members, it is some of our people. I look at one of my colleagues who has a young family at home. If there is anyone here whom I know personally who cares about his family, it is this man. He is saying: "I am opting out of the pension plan". The issue is that we have calculated the cost. We know the cost and have said that we want to pay the cost as all other Canadian citizens have to pay a cost to retire.

I commend my colleagues who have decided to opt out of this overly generous plan and who are prepared to put their reputations, their leadership and their imagination on the line. There is another vision for Canada, a vision of responsibility, a vision of leading the country into a moral position that says we will treat taxpayers' money as a public trust with the same jealously and with the same concern as we have for our own.

[André Caron, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to what the hon. member for Richelieu had to say. He expressed his surprise at the wording of Motion No. 4 which says that members who want to make an election concerning their pension will be able to receive the pension or make that election only if they are Canadian citizens.

I am astonished, surprised and disappointed to see this kind of proposal because, like the hon. member for Richelieu, I see this as an attack on the members Quebec sent to Ottawa, an attack on Bloc members. The message is that Bloc members are sovereignists who are trying to get Quebec to separate and should be punished by being deprived of their pensions.

When they were elected in October 1993, the Bloc members were well aware that their term in Ottawa would not be long enough to entitle them to a pension. However, I would like to point out two things about Motion No. 4. First, I think it is unfair to sovereignist members who work in Ottawa and represent their constituents. Sovereignist members from Quebec received a mandate from the people. They are proud to sit in the House of Commons and do the job they promised to do, which is to defend the interests of Quebec and promote Quebec's sovereignty.

Incidentally, this motion attacks not just Quebec sovereignists but any Quebecer sitting in the House of Commons who, after Quebec becomes sovereign, decides to give up his Canadian citizenship, because the motion says: "As long as that person is a Canadian citizen".

So are the Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Labour, the President of the Privy Council and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, the members for Sherbrooke, Pierrefonds-Dollard, Verdun-Saint-Paul, Outremont, Gatineau-Labelle, and the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce who has been in this House for 30 years, are they all going to be forced to choose between their pension and their citizenship after Quebec becomes sovereign?

Are you going to tell the Prime Minister who, if I am not mistaken, has been a member of the House of Commons for 30 or 33 years and who has represented the people of Quebec to the best of his ability: "Mr. Prime Minister, if you do not give up your Canadian citizenship, you will be entitled to your pension, but otherwise, if you take out Quebec citizenship, you will give up the pension entitlements you had under Canadian law"?

I consider this motion unfair for the membership of the Bloc Quebecois because it smells like punishment. It is also unfair for federalist members of Parliament from Quebec, who will be asked to choose between their pension and their citizenship.

It also makes a mockery of the whole Quebec sovereignty debate in which it has been made clear that Quebec would assume its responsibilities in the event of sovereignty. Quebec will not ask people living there to give up their citizenship or anything else in order to obtain Quebec citizenship. Quebec will not, for example, ask federal public servants entitled to a pension to give up their Canadian citizenship in order to receive a pension paid by Quebec, because Quebec has announced it will assume the responsibilities it inherits from the Government of Canada in the area of federal public service pensions.

I think that a motion like this one complicates matters ahead of time for the Quebec and Canadian negotiators who will be trying to reach an amicable agreement after Quebec achieves sovereignty.

I think it is a very bad thing and does not augur well for the future to have Parliament adopt this sort of motion. It is a disgraceful way to behave and it will hinder future negotiations.

I think we will need all our democratic and justice wits about us to ensure that the negotiations following sovereignty are conducted in the best possible manner. It is not acceptable for the Government of Canada to adopt a motion like this one, which

will prejudice discussions and make it harder for Canada and Quebec to reach an agreement before they even start.

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to think it is a pleasure to speak to this motion today and if I begin to speak rather quickly during my presentation it is because the government has invoked closure; I must hurry as usual to get through before something else happens on the other side.

This is not the first time I have spoken on the bill. It is a very important bill. The three most substantial bills for my office as far as public interest especially in this spring sitting of Parliament are the MP pension plan, Bill C-41, the sentencing bill, and Bill C-68, the gun control bill. Those three have invoked more interest in Canadian papers and in my riding than any other legislation the government has talked about or has brought in.

The Canadian public should know that today closure was invoked on those three bills to stifle debate in the House. Those three bills the Canadian people think are most important have now been allocated only a few hours of debate before they have been passed and rammed through Parliament.

Before I get to the substance of the bill, people may think these bills could be dealt with in committee. Maybe that would be a good place to air them and put forward amendments.

On first reading of Bill C-64, the employment equity bill, I was not allowed to bring amendments because they were in English only and could not be accepted. Then only five minutes of debate was allowed per amendment, which meant often I was not allowed to speak. When it was brought to the House, closure was invoked like it was done with the three bills. When the committee has a bill as controversial as the pension bill, it does not have to invoke closure, it just will not let any witnesses appear. That will take care of the debate.

Perhaps a private members' bill would be a good way to get democracy to the forefront and on to the front burner. People should have been in committee the other day to see the look on the face of the member for Hamilton-Wentworth when Bill C-224 was deep sixed by the Liberal majority on the committee, never again to see the light of day because it did not want to see it there.

It is very difficult to get a point of view across and it is disappointing to see the government, which campaigned on open government, more access for the Canadian people, invoking different types of closure in different ways to stifle meaningful debate. It is very discouraging.

In speaking to this block of motions before us on the bill, I want to reiterate concerns of my constituents. I could read from endless supplies of letters I have received from people concerned about the bill, about the previous pension plan and so on. They are very angry.

Of the three bills I mentioned earlier this bill is the one that really peaks their interest. Because we cannot have meaningful debate in here the government will not allow it to go on as it should.

The last time I was on my feet speaking to this bill on previous reading I offered to debate any member of the House anywhere in Canada at any time in a public forum on pension plans. We cannot seem to get Liberal members to debate it here. They are not very proud of it. There are not many speakers from the government side. No one accepted the challenge because they realize the amount of gas to keep their cars running out behind the theatre to make their quick getaway would cause some kind of global warming.

No one will debate. No one wants to debate in a public forum. No one on the Liberal side is proud of this legislation. They will hang their heads and pass it later on. It is really too bad. I believe the government is running scared on Bill C-41, Bill C-68, the pension bill, Bill C-64, the employment equity bill. It does not want to debate any of those. It does not want to debate anything like that because it realizes those are the things Canadians will get upset about. It hopes to slide these through and somehow keep people from knowing the truth about this pension plan.

I want to make perfectly clear for my constituents that I will have to opt out of the pension plan. It is a shame really. I sent out 40,000 questionnaires earlier this year and 85 per cent of the people who responded on this issue said they think members of Parliament should have a pension plan. There is nothing wrong with a pension plan, only make it the same as the pension plan in the private sector. They supported me. A pension plan for MPs is not a bad deal, but they said I should not dare support the pension plan proposed by the government.

That is too bad. Most members on both sides of the House have families. I have a wife and four kids. I like to support them and do my part in family finances. However, when the Liberals deliberately put together a package they know no fair minded person can support, it is a shame. They will force people out of the pension plan to make sure there is nothing available. This shows their motive, especially when speaking to Motions Nos. 1 and 6, the idea of opting in or opting out of this plan for future parliamentarians.

In a sense the Liberals are hoping to invoke closure on this issue even into the next election. They do not want to talk about this. It is a fait accompli. One must be part of this pension plan to run for Parliament next time. They are even trying to stifle the debate on the next round of parliamentarians, which is really disgusting.

The next time around Canadians do not need to worry because if they vote for a Reform government this pension plan, regardless of what the bill says, will be gone, deep sixed as it should be. We will have a fair pension plan in which we match funds one for one, not this ridiculous four to one, gold plated plan we see have today.

Let me read one or two letters. It is almost sad to have to read a letter like this, but I will read a little to show what constituents think about MP pension plans. This letter came to my Chilliwack office:

In 1950 as a young nineteen year old man I was working as an apprentice making one dollar an hour. When Canada asked for volunteers to go to Korea I volunteered. I spent two years in the trenches and many times did not know if I would see the sunrise the next morning. Many of my comrades did not.

I continued to serve my country for another 15 years until I became a diabetic and was forced to retire from the armed forces. For all my dedicated service I received $142 a month.

Three years ago I lost my leg and could not work any more. Now my pension is indexed and I receive $580 a month.

A member of Parliament serves six years in office, receiving a good salary and many fringe benefits. If he is not re-elected after this time he receives a pension-

-this is under the old plan which many people on the front benches will qualify for-

-of $40,000 a year which is already indexed. How can they justify this? My wife and I have worked hard all of our lives to raise six children and help build a way of life for ourselves and our fellow Canadians.

Why are my 16 years of service worth only $142 a month and an MP's six years of service worth over $3,000 a month?

If I were to be challenged on this idea of debating in public and I brought forward this letter what would be the response from the Liberal members? That is why they will not debate it outside of this place. It is a sad thing. How can one look in the eye of a veteran like this, a guy who has now lost his leg and is unable to work, and tell him: "Survive on $500 a month and then pay my pension with your taxes?" I have said enough.

[Mike Scott, Reform, Skeena, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am deeply troubled as I rise today to speak to the issue of MP pensions. My opposition to the pension plan and that of my colleagues is well known and our refusal to accept it is well known.

What especially troubles me today is the way the government is using time allocation to ram this and other bills through the House without proper debate. This is an abuse of our parliamentary system.

In speaking to the pension scheme, as I often do when I am speaking on bills in the House, I always refer back to the auditor general's observations about what government spending should be about. There should always be accountability. There should always be a designated goal and a measurement for whether those goals are being achieved by the expenditure. What is the purpose of this pension plan? What is it meant to do? Is it achieving that?

When the American government was instituted some two centuries ago there was actually a spirited public debate as to whether legislators should be paid at all. Some said they had to be because otherwise only the wealthy could engage in politics. Others said they should not because politics should not attract people who thought they could make a comfortable living if they were good at it.

The decision that they should be paid seems obvious, but back then politics was not a full time occupation. Legislatures sat less often for less time and they did a whole lot less legislating. Maybe that is something we could enjoy as Canadians. By the way, back in 1867 Canadian MPs were paid $6 a day. Things are a little different today. Now we have professional politicians. That is the consequence of the decision to pay them well.

That has both good and bad aspects. On the bad side, too many people in the House have never had real jobs. I do not say that political expertise is always bad. We do need people who understand how to get things done and how to work within the parliamentary system. I suppose it is good that some people can do politics full time as a career, but we can have too much of a good thing.

In any case, the decision was made to pay politicians so that financial barriers to holding public office would not exist. That is defensible, and it produced predictable results. MPs are also paid fairly well today. We are not paid as well as some people may think, although as my colleague from Calgary Centre recently pointed out, we are paid more than is apparent. We are paid reasonably so that we can afford to devote ourselves full time to the job and, to be quite honest, so we will be harder to corrupt. Frankly, that is money well spent. MPs who are struggling to survive and to keep the wolf away from the door are obviously more susceptible to improper approaches. So we have good reason for paying politicians and for paying them reasonably well.

What about the pension scheme? What is the reason for having this pension plan in the first place, and why is it so generous? It is obvious that the purpose of the pension is to enable people to stay with a career, knowing that when it is over they will be provided for. Private sector companies have pensions for that reason, and it is quite reasonable.

No one doubts the desirability of having pensions for MPs, as my colleague just pointed out. The real question before us today is do we have a good reason for having an outrageously generous pension system for MPs compared to their salaries and compared to the private sector and compared to other Canadians? Put another way, is there a good reason for structuring the rewards for politics so that MPs get less now and more later, that is, if they survive six years or longer? Is there a good reason for

creating a system where the reward for being an MP depends very heavily on getting re-elected again and again? Do we have a system that rewards MPs for making the right choice here and now, or one that encourages them to promise and promise to deficit spend, to go along with their leadership even when they know it is wrong, all in the desperate hope of being re-elected and becoming a 20-year man or woman and walking off with a huge pension? That is what the pension plan is doing right now.

Mr. Speaker, the other day you found it necessary to remind my colleagues on the opposite bench that this is a debating chamber and not a barnyard. The problem that time was chicken sounds from the other side, but it is also inappropriate to hear snorts and grunts.

I do not expect my colleagues opposite to agree that we are, all things considered, overpaid. Perhaps they will agree that the current system is dishonest because it conceals the real compensation MPs receive. Perhaps they will also agree that it is poorly designed, in that instead of rewarding courage and sound decisions in the present it rewards survival at any cost.

I think my colleagues opposite would be wise to go home and speak to their constituents before they make decisions on how they will vote on the pension bill, decisions that may haunt them in the next election. I also think they would be wise to take some time during the recess, if we wait to pass the bill, and before the recess if we do not, to consider the following questions.

If we are going to reward MPs at a certain level, does it make sense to put the money primarily into salaries or primarily into pensions? If we are going to reward MPs at a certain level, does it make sense to pay all of them more or less equally or to give far greater rewards to those who have been here the longest?

I want to repeat that I thoroughly understand the importance of having expertise available. I am no career politician, and I understand that this is not, in proper numbers, a bad thing. However, I also believe that a system that rewards survival in politics above all else will attract to politics precisely those people most adept at surviving election after election. Too often these are also people skilled at sacrificing the future to the present in their public policy decisions. Our national debt has essentially accumulated in the last 20 years.

Last night the member for Durham said: "I have often wondered coming to the House how it is possible that Canada created the debt it has today. I have often wondered who was controlling the cheque books.". Perhaps he should ask the Prime Minister, a consummate political survivor, a former finance minister, and a master of promise now and pay later. Such politicians have proven very skilful at convincing Canadians they can have their cake and eat it too, which has been ruinous for the country. It has been very lucrative for them, however.

Our national debt has accumulated under politicians who made promises and presented bills later and were re-elected for doing so. Our national debt has accumulated under politicians with very generous pensions. I am afraid our national debt is so huge that the only people who can shoulder the burden in the future will be MPs on their pensions. Frankly, I do not believe the hon. member for York Centre will wind up in a cardboard box collecting pogey if we reform MP pensions. I do believe the current system rewards wrong behaviour, which is very bad and ill considered.

Let us by all means adopt an honest system of paying MPs. And whatever we decide to pay them, let us put most of it into salaries, with a pension system no more generous than the private sector. Let us not reward the political survivor above the one who does what is right, who tells the truth, and who sometimes must pay the price for doing so.

Proposed changes to the MP pension plan are totally inappropriate. The members opposite imposed closure. They have heard countless complaints about the generosity of the plan. They have excluded witnesses critical of the pension plan from committee hearings, but they cannot exclude the Canadian public.

I look forward to going to all of their ridings in the next election to remind their constituents of how they behaved today. Because of their votes today, they are going to need their pensions after the next election, because I am convinced they are not going to be here.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to speak on the bill, but I think members have raised a number of issues that bear commenting on and require me to remind the members of what is being proposed in the bill.

I would like to address the general feeling of many of the speakers that the pensions of members of Parliament should have the same provisions as those applicable to the private sector.

One of the aspects of private sector pension plans the members have not given any consideration to whatsoever is the vesting differential. Vesting is the point at which the contributions of the employer become the property of the employee. Consider a corporation with a pension plan that contributes x dollars to a plan, which is matched by the employee. Let us say they contributed $1,000 each. There would be $2,000 in that plan. That accumulated amount starts to accumulate to the benefit of the employee following a two-year tenure of employment. After two years of employment an employee who is a

member of a normal private sector pension plan automatically starts to accrue and accumulate benefits.

If the members really wanted to provide all of the details they would have to take into account the differential in the vesting being imposed upon members of Parliament and the vesting benefit that is available in the private sector.

If we were to go to a system where vesting in the private sector was applicable to members of Parliament, that means each and every member of Parliament would automatically at the end of two years of service start to accrue and be entitled to a pension. That means that the vast majority of members of Parliament who never did reach six years of service would automatically be included. In fact the cost of the pension plan would more than double. In a quick calculation I did here on my laptop computer, I find that it would almost triple the cost of pensions to the House of Commons simply by changing the vesting benefits.

I honestly believe that the government has come forward with certain provisions that are absolutely necessary. The government, in its election platform, said that members' pensions should be reformed. There were two specific commitments, as the hon. parliamentary secretary outlined to the House. First, there was the eligibility. Under the current plan, members of Parliament would be eligible to be entitled to a pension if they served six years in aggregate in this House.

Under our Constitution a House must turn over at least every five years, so the six years is actually a very critical period. It means that a member of Parliament has to be elected at least twice, and in some cases in our history it has been more than twice. It could be three and sometimes four times that members have had to run simply to accumulate six years simply because of Houses collapsing before their five-year mandate might be available.

The six years really is a critical period, and it does, as all members know, eliminate a vast majority of members of Parliament from ever qualifying for pension benefits. Those are the differences that I think would have to be rationalized if the hon. members of the Reform Party would like to somehow move this to a system compatible with the private sector.

The second item the government committed to in its red book was to end double dipping. I am very proud to say that the Prime Minister did not wait until this legislation came forward to bring in effectively the end of double dipping. The first example was with regard to the newly appointed governor general, who was a member of the Senate and entitled to receive a pension. The governor general was asked and accepted to reduce his salary otherwise payable as the governor general by the amount of pension. The double dipping is eliminate.

There are other examples in which the double dipping has effectively been eliminated even before this legislation has come forward. Those are the kinds of things the government has committed to and is doing, even in the absence of the legislation. That is important to point out.

Finally, as was pointed out earlier, in response to the need to demonstrate to the public that there was a goodwill effort to deal with this issue, the Prime Minister went further than his commitment in the election. He went further by proposing that the rate of accumulation of pension was going to be reduced. It is called the accrual rate and it has been reduced from 5 per cent to 4 per cent.

With the changes that have been made in addition to the commitments in the red book, the cost of the pension plan is going to be reduced by some one-third. Changes that have been made have been very significant changes.

For some hon. members and I know for many of my own constituents and Canadians across the land, there is a compensation question here they would like to have resolved.

The Reform Party whip has suggested we eliminate perks, pensions, and everything and simply pay members $150,000 a year. The member has determined, based on the work and research his party has done, that $150,000 a year is the salary we should be paid to compensate us for the contribution we make in this place.

I do not want to debate with any hon. members what the value of my work is to the House. Certainly under any criteria I would never suggest that $150,000 a year would be appropriate for this job. It is an absolute ludicrous suggestion. I do not think that the Canadian people, if they really knew what the Reform Party had in mind, would consider any of this rhetoric as being in any way credible.

Very often in debate members have raised certain examples where a person is going to get a pension which by the time he or she reaches age 75 will have accumulated in value to $3 million, $4 million, $6 million and so on. Let us get the facts right. They are working with numbers and people have to be cautious about numbers. Let me give an example of what this pension plan would mean to me, the member for Mississauga South.

If I should serve six years I will be entitled to a pension which will accrue at 4 per cent a year or 24 per cent of my salary. My salary is $64,400 a year. That means I will get approximately

$15,000 a year in pension but it will not be payable to me until I reach age 55, some seven or eight years from now.

I think members have been using age 75 as a period to which we would be getting the pension on average. Therefore, between the ages of 55 and 75 getting paid that $15,000, the net present value of those payments is $460,000. That is also a big number but it is a number which is made up of a $15,000 annual payment over 20 years with an assumed rate of interest of some 4 per cent which is the rate we get if we should not make our six years and we get our funds back.

The most important point I wanted to raise is the point I raised initially with regard to the vesting. Members really must consider the differential in the vesting provisions available to private sector pension plans and those that are imposed on the members of Parliament. It does have a significant impact on the calculations and it also has a significant impact on the rationale as to eligibility.

If those members believe that every member of Parliament, and I stress every member of Parliament who serves two years, should get a pension when they reach age 55, my figures show that the cost to the House of Commons would triple.

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley East, BC]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member for Mississauga South. Was he challenging me to a debate in his own riding? Is that what he was doing?

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

That might be a matter of debate the members may want to further look into at some other time and some other place. Respectfully, the member does not have a point of order.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, most of the time when I get an opportunity to rise and speak regarding a bill, I usually say it is a privilege and an honour to speak to it. However today I am going to have to get up and say I cannot believe I would have to rise in this place to speak on such a bill and that such a bill even exists.

Surely there are enough people here who realize that such a lucrative plan is not acceptable to Canadians. They should take the time to find out, Even the Liberal whip might just check with his constituents and see what they have to say. I would be interested in the results.

I quote a former parliamentarian and an actuary. This is what he said about why this pension plan is wrong:

I believe that compensation for MPs should be brought into line with modern private sector practice. My conclusion is that this bill is bad for you as members, bad for Parliament as an institution and bad for Canada. It entrenches your benefits at a level higher than those available to general taxpayers. It is my opinion that as long as your pension benefits exceed the levels available to taxpayers, there will be a strong public opinion to the effect that MPs are overpaid. More and more, the public's attitude to politicians is that they are all crooks. Some of this has to do with actual scandals, but in my view, the underlying cause is a view that politicians set one set of rules for themselves and set another for the general public.

I put it to you that if one of the last acts of Parliament before the summer recess is to pass legislation entrenching pension benefits for MPs at levels well beyond those possible to the citizenry-I believe that Parliament will have lost the moral authority to proceed as the country needs.

You may be faced with immense public outrage for protecting your privileged position just before you skewer Canadians. In that case, you deserve the public's contempt.

He did not even know about closure at the time he made that statement. I could not agree with him more.

I picked up some other quotes that were mentioned at various times around the Hill. I am not even sure when they were said, but apparently a member from Mississauga said: "We have no option because the salaries are not generous enough to enrich our pensions ourselves. Therefore, the government has to provide for us". What a bunch of hogwash.

I know full well and if they do not they should stay close to their phones once in a while. I doubt very seriously that we could find a member who has not received a phone call from some senior citizen or some other individual who is having a really tough time making it.

I received one from a pensioner this week who said: "Mr. Thompson, I make $714 a month. My husband is not well. We are having an extremely difficult time even paying rent. We had to give up our home not too long ago and we are asked to make it on that kind of money. What can you do for us?" I work at trying to do something for those people but then I think how can I with any conscience at all tell her I will do all I can for her, that I will work so hard for her but I will accept a pension that will pay four to one.

[Dianne Brushett, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Give her some of your pension.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

I would be more than pleased to. In fact, I probably have. I do not know how anybody with any conscience at all could listen to situations like that and then accept something like this pension.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I understand there are some very strongly held views on this subject matter, but I certainly would like to have the benefit of hearing each and every intervention.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there is one thing about it. When I go to my grave I will never say I ever took anything that was not deserving from anyone. I will not accept the pension. I will opt out or I will not opt in, whichever it is.

I could not go to my grave with a good conscience knowing I had done that, especially when we have people in this House who have brought the government practically to its knees. If they have not done that yet, they soon will with a $600 billion deficit. People are crying because they cannot get unemployment insurance. Seniors cannot make it because of their pensions. I cannot believe what I am hearing. They would not give an inch. Not an inch.

During the 1993 campaign, boy were things going to be different. Were they ever going to be different. I stood on the same platform with people who agreed with me that things had to change with the pension. If the Liberals could agree with the Reformers on one thing, it was to fix the pension plan. This is not even a band-aid.

We ought to be ashamed of ourselves for even considering such a thing when we are asking everybody in the country to tighten their belts. There will be no more UI money. There will not be any more old age security money. No more CPP. We have to cut our health care. We have to cut education. But boy, we are going to keep those fat pensions coming. What a bunch of hypocritical nonsense.

I hope in the next election, on this issue alone, if they do not pay the price for what they have done today that they will wish they had.

[Ronald J. Duhamel, Liberal, St. Boniface, MB]

What is your pension?

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

My pension, just in case hon. members want to know, is about $914 a month as a school teacher. I paid into it for nearly 40 years and it was not matched dollar for dollar until about the last five years of my work. It took a long, long time. That is called a private sector pension.

[Dianne Brushett, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Double dipping.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, they can call it anything they want but it is not double dipping.

I also issue the challenge to my friend from Fraser Valley in British Columbia. If any one of you suckers wants to take me to your ridings, let us go.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Order, please. I want to take a moment to remind all members that interventions must be directed through the Chair. I think it becomes apparent on a day like today with subject matter on which there are strongly held views, that if the debate is not maintained in the traditional parliamentary fashion with interventions being made through the Chair that some rather unexpected and possibly unparliamentary statements might be made. I urge members on both sides of the House to be judicious and respectful in the normal practice of the Chamber.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, no doubt a person is going to get a little riled up over this kind of an issue. I apologize for not speaking through the Chair. I lost it, but I will repeat what I said.

Any one of my hon. colleagues across the way who would like to take me into their ridings to debate the pension and my personal pension which I earned after many hard years of work at less than a dollar for a dollar, then I would be more than pleased to accept the invitation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you because I am sure you are the only one who really listened at heart.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

I do want to take a moment to express my gratitude to the hon. member for Wild Rose for the manner in which he completed his remarks and particularly in reference to an earlier statement made which I think bordered on the questionable side of debate. I certainly compliment and thank him for the manner in which he handled that issue.

[Sharon Hayes, Reform, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting to follow my hon. colleague. Much of what he said and much of what he feels is what I feel.

I do want to speak today at report stage on Bill C-85, an act to amend the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act. I spoke on this bill last month at which time I expressed my concerns and reasons for vehemently opposing this piece of government legislation.

My opposition to this bill is based on certain principles that I as a member of Parliament for the Reform Party hold and advocate. I would like to state these two principles from our blue book:

We believe in public service-that governments, civil servants, politicians and political parties exist to serve the people, and that they should demonstrate this service commitment at all times.

We believe that public money should be regarded by governments as "funds held in trust", and that governments should practise fiscal responsibility to balance expenditures and revenues.

I mention those principles to the House today because they show us a government that has distorted this process and has flaunted the trust of the Canadian people. Reformers want a fair hearing on this issue.

Today, as we come to this place in which the government has invoked closure on this bill we come with the same outrage that Canadians must feel.

I put to the House as did a witness in the committee the other day the intervention that this bill is bad for the members who sit in this House, it is bad for Parliament and it is bad for the Canadian people.

I will say why I think it is bad for the members who sit in the House. As with many of my colleagues I see around me, we came to the House to help set a new course in government. We came here with the best interests of our fellow Canadians in mind. We came here to bring integrity to the House.

I know many of us work very hard and diligently in this place, but I must say that today that I am ashamed of the pretence of my colleagues on the other side. I see arrogant initiatives that presumably are done in the name of change yet they change very little.

For instance, we see a program with three levels. We have a level of participation in this pension program which is virtually unchanged for those who sat in the House before the last election. I want to remind people particularly in my riding of some of the numbers that would be applied to these members of Parliament. The figures I have are based on nine year terms as ministers, assuming that these people live to age 75.

The hon. member for Sherbrooke, the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party may gain from this legislation a pension of $4.5 million. The neighbour to my constituency, the member for Burnaby-Kingsway, would gain from this legislation a pension of $3.5 million. The Deputy Prime Minister, the member for Hamilton East, would have a pension at age 75 of $2.5 million. This is done by this government in the name of change. Shame on the government.

Then there are the newer members. If they become retreads in the next election, there is still a very wide gulf between them and the Canadians they purport to represent.

According to one of the witnesses in the committee, even as this plan now stands, it is seven times greater than what would be expected in a public sector plan and four times greater than what would be expected in a private sector plan. The government calls this change.

This is bad for members as well who came here with the real belief in change, who wanted to make a difference and to raise the public attitude for this place. Those who decided to reject what has been given to us here are treated purposely with contempt in the sense that we are given the option that all pension benefits are lost to those who choose to reject this proposal.

Once again I am amazed at the arrogance of the members sitting on the other side of the House. I am amazed even in this discussion at their self-righteous indignation when we point out the duplicity of what they are saying.

This bill is also bad for Parliament. As we look at this bill and other bills that have come to this place, we see procedural nightmares and shoddy treatment of the democratic process. It is true that when the original bill which brought in parliamentary allowances came in years ago, all stages of that bill were brought through the House in one day, including committee of the whole. At that time there was no written bill for consideration by the members. It simply was brought in and shoved through. We have not changed much. Is this a place of change? Is this the change promised by the red book?

What do we have with Bill C-85? Last week in committee, a committee that was dominated by government members, we had witnesses who represented real Canadians. We had witnesses who represented professionals in this field who were refused entrance to that committee. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation gained entry to the committee only by presenting itself to the committee and insisting on a hearing.

In that committee there was a lack of notice of the government's intent to proceed to clause by clause after a full day of witnesses. Even after the witnesses said there were many flaws in the bill, it took the government 12 minutes to complete its consideration of that piece of legislation. Over 28 detailed and complex clauses were covered in 12 minutes by the government.

It reminds me of what we experienced in the human rights and status of the disabled persons committee when we were considering Bill C-64 recently. In that circumstance, government once again invoked closure on the clause by clause portion with a five minute limit on each clause. Only four out of the 50 witnesses brought before that committee were from the Reform list of recommendations.

Then the government comes to the House and says there was an overwhelming support for employment equity of all things. Employment equity is the bane of the Canadian people. They do not accept it but this government tries to claim otherwise because the witnesses brought before the committee supported it. I call that a flouting disrespect for this place as Parliament.

Then when this bill came to the House earlier today, what do we get? Government invoked closure along with other bills so that we have a four hour maximum to discuss each of the two stages, report stage and third reading. In that time, we have 40 motions to be considered. Is that not bad for Parliament?

Finally, this bill is bad for Canadians. Underlying this whole debate is a moral imperative. All members, including the members on the other side have received phone calls and letters about this. I have received many. I am sure I have heard from the cousin of the constituent the member for Wild Rose mentioned. Pensioners in distress look at this legislation and say it is morally wrong for government to do this.

How can MP pensions continue to be gold plated under this bill when it is far above and beyond what ordinary Canadians can expect from their private or public sector pension plans? How can this government justify tinkering with the MP pension

plan when the future of the CPP and old age security are at very real risk?

The Canada pension plan is actuarially unsound. The pay as you go system now in place is completely unsustainable. The security of Canadian pensioners is threatened at this moment, yet the politicians in the House have endowed upon themselves security and golden retirement years.

The approach of government security programs for ordinary Canadians has not worked. They are no longer consistent with demographics, expectations, fiscal realities. Canadians know this. They seek to secure their own security.

Reformers have confidence and faith in Canadians. We want to empower them with the resources and tools to plan for their retirement. We reject government bureaucracy, waste and arrogance, especially as we see it in this kind of legislation today.

Government insists that it knows best. Yet it continues to pretend that the debt and deficit have to be shouldered by ordinary Canadians but not the leadership of this country. It continues to let the debt grow by $100 billion in its mandate which will indeed put greater stress on social programs, pension plans, every part of Canadians' lives.

It is true the interest on our debt is probably the biggest threat to the security of Canadians. This government in the meantime continues to outdo the Mulroney legacy with its patronage, with its arrogant closure and with its arrogant pension plan. The arrogance of the government is the biggest threat to Canadians.

[Lee Morrison, Reform, Swift Current—Maple Creek—Assiniboia, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I recently learned that the Liberal Party, having decided that Parliament is irrelevant and that parliamentary debate is of no particular value to our society, is also working on a project to redesign the Canadian coat of arms. It will remove the lion and the unicorn and replace them with two fat pigs which will illustrate the triumph of greed over rationality in this country.

This country did not have an aristocracy. People came to Canada to get away from the aristocracies in the old world. However, we have willy-nilly created our own right here in Canada, the political elite, the professional politicians. This is the aristocracy we have voluntarily burdened ourselves with. It is a shame and a scandal.

The hon. Marie Antoinette, the president of the treasury board, tells us that this is the normal thing. This is Canada. This is the future for Canada. There will be this little group of very special people, many of whom have never had a real job in their lives, who somehow or other got elected to Parliament. When they leave this place, through their own machinations they will be allowed to carry away a suitcase full of money. This is wrong. Several hon. members opposite have engaged in the most convoluted rationalizations I have ever heard to justify this massive dip into the public trough.

[Elwin Hermanson, Reform, Kindersley—Lloydminster, SK]

And it is not a skinny dip.

[Lee Morrison, Reform, Swift Current—Maple Creek—Assiniboia, SK]

Mr. Speaker, do I have to provide my own hecklers? I know there are not many people on the other side.

The rules of the House do not permit me to name the individuals who will be the top troughers in the new scheme as it is being developed. However, I can read the names of their ridings and the total sums to which each of them will be entitled, and I use the word entitled very loosely.

If the hon. member for Sherbrooke lives to the age of 75, he will receive $4.25 million courtesy of the taxpayer. The hon. member for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte will receive $3.86 million. The hon. member for Hamilton East will receive $2.8 million. The hon. member for York South-Weston will receive $2.75 million. The list goes on and on.

No other class of Canadians has a deal like that; no corporate employee, no self-employed person, no farmer. Who on earth aside from our new aristocracy could ever hope to take home a paycheque like that?

One of the major sources of my case work is disabled veterans, pensioners in this, the 50th anniversary of the end of the war. I am dealing with one constituent now who participated in poison gas experiments at the Suffield, Alberta base. He is now paying the price of that in ruined health. He has a lot of problems. His doctor says there is no question that can be traced to the poison gas experiments. He and his wife draw the magnificent sum of $102 a month for his partial disability-shame, shame, shame.

Hon. members opposite say that for their little bits of service here they are entitled to millions of dollars at the expense of the Canadian taxpayer. I am disgusted to the point of regurgitation.

Surely people who pretend they are competent to run a country should be competent to arrange for their own retirement. They make a reasonable salary, as do we. Some of that could be invested to their own benefit. They do not have to take $4 from the public purse for every $1 they put in.

Reformers have put our money where our mouth is, so to speak. We are opting out of this plan. It will cost the hon. member for Beaver River, a school teacher and by no means a wealthy woman, $1.8 million which she would have received if she had agreed to stay in the trough with the hogs.

I opted out of the pension plan the day I signed up with pay and services. I gave a written statement to the effect that I did not want and would not accept it because I felt the old plan was unconscionable. The new plan, the new i

Why are we here? Did we come here to benefit ourselves? I used to live in the Philippines. I remember a famous remark by one of the senators there when he was tweaked for having his hand a little too deep in the cookie jar. He said what are we in power for if not to enrich ourselves. He must have been a Liberal.

Old line politicians maintain perks are necessary to attract good members. What it has attracted is a bunch of professional politicians, people who have systematically over the last 30 years bankrupt the country and now are expecting a massive payout for their services-some reward.

I hope when the bill goes to the other place there will be some sober second thought, although I do not expect it. Some sober second thought could even have helped here; it could have been killed in committee. Committee was not even allowed to handle it properly. It was whisked through committee with indecent haste. No one had a chance to make serious amendments or to work on it at the time. We will make some amendments in the House, to what purpose I do not know. We know what will happen here, the cabinet has decided. The whip will be lashed and everything will happen according to plan and all the Liberals will go home happy and fat with their suitcases full of money.