Mr. Chairman, I have a comment and then a question. In terms of some of the concerns that have been raised by my colleagues that there is a sort of multilayered pension, I would say that in part this is due to the fact that a minority of members of parliament asked that there be different provisions. Those requests were respected by the Prime Minister in 1994. Subsequently when other changes were made it was necessary to respect that certain other members had been in the old plan for so long that it would have been quite unfair to try to fit them in to the new conditions.
That is not unusual even in the private sector. Looking at a lot of major companies that have existed for a long time, there are employees who belong to one plan and employees who belong to another arrangement of the same plan because they began much later than those other employees. From my own experience, my own family in the CNR, there was the 1958 plan and then there was a plan that existed before 1958 and I think some changes came after that.
I think if the record is searched there would be other examples in the private sector where this is done, not because people have some kind of urge for complexity, but just because as changes happen, the welfare of those who have already invested a certain period of time in the existing plan has to be respected, otherwise they would be treated quite unfairly.
My question for the government House leader has to do not so much with this legislation but with other amendments to the MPs pension act that have been sought in the past by my colleague from Burnaby—Douglas. Could the government House leader tell me if it is the government's intention, obviously not today and not in the context of this legislation but at some other point, to bring in legislation that would respect the decision taken in the Rosenberg case and amend the MPs pension allowances act to provide for benefits to same sex spouses? Is it the intention of the government to do that at some point or not?