I am not grasping at straws. The unity of the country is not straw. It is a strong principle. To try to run roughshod over the benefits of my constituents is not grasping at straws. It may be in the minds of some members across the way. We know what they stand for.
Before getting into the issue of MPs' pensions let me talk about the lack of understanding toward one another. Mr. Speaker has made a judgment on one incident and I will not refer to that one.
There is another incident that happened yesterday in which members across, in the same party, said something as follows.
They said the Liberal and the Bloc members were conniving in some sort of treason-that is what they said-because the three bills will be adopted by the House by June 23. In support of their remarks, they said that the reason was in order to celebrate the Saint-Jean-Baptiste holiday. First, as we know, the holiday falls on a Saturday, this year. Second, if it fell during the week, the House would not sit that day. So, that is wrong. Third, and most important, as my hon. colleague for Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine has just said, celebrating the Saint-Jean-Baptiste holiday is not treasonous.
The members opposite have no sense of our country's culture. They should learn about it. People in my riding celebrate the Saint-Jean-Baptiste holiday, and, this year, they will be celebrating in the village of Cheney. Thousands will be there, and they are not traitors. The members opposite who describe them as such are mistaken. They should apologize to the House and, more importantly, to all French speaking Canadians for having made such stupid remarks about our fellow citizens. This is what is important. Once again, the Reform Party members stooped as low as they could to support their remarks.
They are using the same kind of thing now in the MPs pension issue. The people in the third party across-it was them I was referring to, not to any other colleague-talk selectively about what they say is the unfair compensation MPs receive.
We had a member here making comments while he is receiving a lucrative pension from the federal government, claiming that he has a right to receive such a pension but that nobody else does, and saying that with a straight face.
Other hon. members have said that they would not refer to the MPs who were receiving some of these double dipping pensions. As they say in the province of my hon. colleague from Newfoundland, "What is good for Goose Bay is good for Gander". So I do not mind raising some of these things.
It has been said that the Deputy Prime Minister, were she to retire today-and not that she will, she will be an hon. member of this House for decades to come-would receive a pension. What is the difference then from the hon. member for Saanich-Gulf Islands, a Reform MP, who receives a pension as a former military officer? He has a right to receive it. That is not the point. Why does he think that nobody else does? What makes him that god-like creature he thinks he is? What about the hon. member for Nanaimo-Cowichan, a general, who says that he can receive a pension but others should not were they to retire in the future?
What about the member for Kootenay West-Revelstoke, a former federal government employee? What about retired teachers across the way? What about retired MLAs who are receiving an MLA pension from a legislature across this country? They stand up in this House and say they are not going to get an MP pension. Do members know why? Because they are getting one from elsewhere already from the public purse. That is the truth.
No matter how they try to camouflage and wrap that truth, the truth will always be the truth. We know. That is not grasping at straws, that is stating fact. Fact sometimes gets in the way of Reform Party policy.
Reform Party MPs have said that the taxpayers of Canada contribute these huge amounts toward MPs' pensions. I have here the document tabled by the President of the Treasury Board. It is a report on the administration of the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act. There is not one year since 1952 in which the contributions to the plan were less than the money going out of the plan in pensions-not one year.
Mr. Speaker, I will give you examples of various years. For instance, the total receipts for the year 1990-91 were $7 million to the plan and the disbursements were $6 million. The disbursements in 1989-90 were $7 million, with $6.3 million in withdrawals, and so on-total receipts, total disbursements.
When some members opposite claim that the amount creates a huge debt of some sort, that is factually incorrect and they know it. This report was tabled in the House by an officer of the government. It was designed to show these numbers. But they refuse to listen to that. They invent, they concoct numbers of their own, supported by the likes of David Somerville, whose claim to fame is to draw little pigs in newspapers. That is all they have to support their argument.
Between that and the nonsense we heard today that only some MPs should be entitled to a pension and others who have different political views, such as Bloc members, are not entitled, and that members should be able to get a military pension and an MP's salary but that other people should not get a pension, that is the kind of logic that works for Reform thinking but not for logical thinking.
It is time to inject an element of intellectual honesty into this debate. I am not ashamed of my salary as a member of Parliament, I earn it. If the voters of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell do not think I am worth this salary, they should not lower it, they should find someone who can do the job better, if that is what is required some day or other.
I say to the members opposite that, if they do not think they are earning their pay, they should work harder and not claim that salaries should be cut. If they are embarrassed about their lack of ability, they should improve their skills. If they are ashamed because they are not working hard enough, let them work a little harder for the voters who sent them here. I was elected by the voters in my riding to do my best, and that is what I intend to do so long as I am here.
That is what the members opposite should do instead of continuing to make Canadians believe things that are the opposite of the truth, to say the least.