Mr. Chairman, when we discuss this whole area of a level playing field, it is rather interesting for members of parliament because our functions are different.
It depends on the area of the country in which we pay income tax, for instance, or other kinds of charges on our salaries. There could be at least 12 different kinds across the country. Each one of us generally pays taxes in the province in which we live. I think very few members choose to pay income taxes in Ontario if they are not from Ontario, although they could, I suppose, if they had two residences, one here and one in their riding.
The point I am making is that there is an uneven playing field at the best of times.
I am told that when the committee was studying the report that was one of the problems involved in the so-called gross up of the income of members of parliament. The Blais commission had arrived at a formula that worked something like this. It assumed a rate of gross up to arrive at the same net benefit as people living in Ontario with two or three dependants and so on.
Of course, if a member lives in a province which has a higher tax rate than Ontario, for example, B.C., Newfoundland or Quebec, they would have to gross up the salary a larger amount to arrive at the same net benefit.
Furthermore, to illustrate a few complications in that regard, some members of parliament already make a different salary than others. Some of us in this Chamber represent very large rural ridings. I think there are 10 or 12 members in that category in the Northwest Territories and I believe there is one in British Columbia. I see my colleague across the way nodding. He is one of them. Those members already make a larger salary. If one was to calculate a grossing up amount, that person would automatically end up with less salary if the law of averages was used.
That brought the following proposition to the minds of many. We would have had a gross up which, at least in appearance, would have been a salary increase, with many members of parliament going home with a substantial decrease in income.
I am told that was one of the reasons the committee that looked into this issue decided that was not a particularly wise way of doing it and abandoned that plan.
As I said previously, we still have a number of people with different incomes. Right now, for instance, I believe that I pay something like $10,000 a year in premiums for the MP pension plan. There are those out there who write articles and publications and so on, who insinuate, by their silence and sometimes otherwise, that this pension is free. But my income is $10,000 a year less than some other members of this House because I opted into the plan. Naturally, the benefit comes later because I get a pension. The reverse is also true.
Those are the various salaries that exist now. To say that we have a condition whereby there will be various levels of income, yes that is true. It is going to be true with several different kinds of retirement plans. But that is true at the moment, even before the passage of this bill.