Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak against extending the hours.
It seems to me that we have a contradiction on the basis of what happened yesterday. We have the government invoking closure three times so that it can ram through some very unpopular legislation. On the one hand, time allocation or closure is being forced on the House. On the other hand, we are talking about extending the hours.
If the government were serious about quality discussion and quality debate on any of the bills, the last thing it should be looking at is closure so that we cannot have a full airing and debate of issues that are important to the Canadian people.
In view of what happened in this place yesterday and what happened in the province of Ontario, it is interesting that closure was being rammed through the House on three very contentious bills. At the same time voters in Ontario went to the polls and rejected the bills, the government is attempting to ram through the House of Commons. It is unbelievable.
It raises the suspicion that perhaps that was the agenda, that some very unpopular bills were not to be allowed to remain in the public arena for further exposure because things are starting to fall apart and they have to be rammed through. The wheels are falling off. MP pension plans, gun control and undefined sexual orientation are three issues that were overwhelmingly defeated in the Ontario provincial election.
The government talks about zilch co-operation coming from the opposition. In my experience there has been zilch shown by the government in the way in which it has organized its agenda and brought to the Canadian people very important issues that need to be discussed.
Two other things were very big factors in the Ontario election. One was that the common sense revolution was very much opposed to employment equity or hiring quotas based on race and sex, another bill the government is determined to put through in spite of the fact that it has been rejected by the people of the province of Ontario.
I should like to talk a bit about the three bills because they are key to closure and trying to ram through legislation. I will start with the MPs pension plan. While it does not represent a whole lot of dollars, it is the flashpoint with the Canadian voter.
We have seen it in Alberta where the premier of that province started out a campaign being less than double digit in the opinion polls. He started to listen to the people and realized that a gold plated pension plan was not supported in any way by them. Therefore he did away with it in Alberta. As a result he gained some credibility and the people started listening to him. It was leadership by example. Somebody was showing real concern for the problem of overspending and debt by doing something about a gold plated pension plan.
Let us move into Ontario. Mr. Harris stood and said that the gold plated pension plan was gone. That was a big part of his platform. It was the part of his platform that gave Mr. Harris the credibility he needed when he addressed other issues. Two provinces have addressed the concern and because of it have been rewarded by tremendous support by the voters. It is unbelievable that the message has not reached the House. The government thinks the bit of tinkering done on the bill will satisfy Canadian voters. It is an absolute sham.
When I was campaigning and after I was elected I cannot think of a public meeting where questions and comments were invited at which the issue of the MPs pension plan did not come up. Voter after voter said to get rid of it, and I agree. It is an abuse of our office. We want fair compensation. There is no argument about that, but the pension plan is not fair. It should be made more in line with what is available in the private sector.
Here we have an issue of high profile that touches all Canadian voters. Many of our citizens would love to have pension plans. Some do not have them. Some are struggling without work. Many people are unemployed. Indeed many young people are underemployed. Because the government is showing no leadership in attacking that serious problem the dilemma continues.
The MPs pension plan is nothing more than another broken red book promise. I know the red book was loosely worded. I have suggested that perhaps it should have started out with: "Once upon a time". The problem with loose wording is that while it may get us off the hook by saying that we did not exactly say this or this is what we meant to say, the voters will make the same interpretation and say that they think this is what was said. When we do not follow through it is indeed a broken promise to voters.
The comment made by my colleague from Calgary Centre about the $150,000 compensation has been referred to many times by the opposition. The point that was missed and continues to be missed by the government was that whatever our compensation the total package should be up front and on the table with no special deals and no tax exempt expense accounts. That was the point he was making regardless of the number. Perhaps he used the wrong number, but the main point he was making was that whatever we were to be paid should be up front and fair and we should make sure that all Canadian people know exactly what we are being paid.
It goes back to the heart of credibility. Because of the failure of the government to attack and do something about the gold plated pension plan it lost all credibility on the deficit and the debt. How can we go to Canadian voters and ask them to accept
spending cuts when we are not prepared to show some leadership by example in making some sacrifice?
The thing that continues to mystify me on the pension plan is that poll after poll clearly indicates Canadian people overwhelmingly want the plan changed. It is not even close. When a poll is broken down by party affiliation, the Liberal supporters also show overwhelming support for having it changed.
We might have a problem with what is known as selective hearing. We hear what we want to hear and we ignore what the Canadian people are really saying.
Money should never be the motivating factor for coming to this place. I do not think it is with many members. When I came to this place I had no idea of what the total package was and frankly I could care less. I was more concerned about the issues and bringing some fiscal sanity to this place. Compensation was secondary. We do not dispute there should be fair compensation. That is all Canadian people are asking for.
The arrogance and the contempt for Parliament shown yesterday in the House have to be coming from the inflated popularity opinion poll numbers that are coming out. Liberals think they can do no wrong and the people love them. We saw what happened in Ontario to a Liberal party that thought it was up in the polls and could no wrong. It said: "We will do nothing. We won't rock the boat. We will just ride this out".