Madam Speaker, I rise today to say that I will be voting against Bill C-37 and that I will be supporting this amendment from my Bloc colleague.
I do not think the government is in touch with the average Canadian. It is not listening to what Canadians feel about this issue. If it were it would not bring in a bill like this.
I want to share this afternoon three reasons why the government is out of touch with the Canadian public and three reasons why the Canadian public does not support this kind of wage increase at this time.
If Liberals were truly in touch with the grassroots of this country they would be hearing what we are hearing when we go back to our ridings about the desperate needs of Canadians in the areas of health care, education and crime prevention. These are all very serious issues and priority issues that face Canadians today.
Canadians are telling us as parliamentarians that we have to get back in touch with the priorities, the most important things that concern them.
They see the federal government, as it has over the past number of years, continuing to cut back on the amount of money going to the provinces. In turn, the provinces have a smaller amount of money to put into important areas like health care.
Members should talk to a person who has stood in line for over a year for an operation, or talk to parents who need to have bingos to raise funds for things in the classrooms, or talk to victims who have been caught in some of these consequences of serious crimes being committed. Those are the Canadians who are asking why in the world we would give money to judges who are making $177,000 a year already when we do not have money to put into those priority concerns that certainly all Canadians are worried about across this nation. It does not make sense.
Canadians are angry about this. We as parliamentarians need to remember that it does not really matter what we think about these issues here in the House. This is not the court that settles the issue. It is the court of public opinion that settles the issue. Come election time they will let us know how they feel about this and other issues.
Canadians have another concern about something like this. The government is sending the wrong message to law enforcement officers, the men and women on the frontlines defending us against the criminal element every day. They are the ones who have to do the dirty work for us. They are the ones who have to clean up the messes that are made by crime and criminals.
There are a lot of angry police officers out there who are looking at the 8.3% wage increase for judges while members of the RCMP have had a five year moratorium on their wages. When they finally got the government to act on it what did they get? They got a pittance. These are the people who are actually out there on the firing line.
If this government wants to continue to drive the wedge between those who are actually law enforcement and those who are sitting on the benches meting out the law, then this kind of legislation does that even more. It makes law enforcement officers angry. It increases their frustration of the inability of judges in many cases to actually bring the full extent of the law against the criminals these law enforcement agents are working so hard to apprehend and bring to court.
During the election and after I have had law enforcement officers tell me about their frustration of working so hard to bring the criminals to the courts and then the criminals get off on a technicality or are given a soft sentence. That is not right and Canadians know that is not right. There is a frustration and anger against some judges who do this sort of thing.
We now come to this House to give those judges a raise. The Canadian people are not happy with our giving them that kind of raise.
RCMP officers finally received a 2% raise retroactive to January 1, 1998. They will receive a second increment of 1% on April 1, 1998 and an additional .75% in October 1998. What does that add up? If my math is correct, it will be 3.5% over two years.
What are the judges going to receive? A supreme court justice's salary will go from $208,200 a year to $225,700 by April 1, 1998. I do not think the Canadian people think that is just.
Before anyone on the other side says I am against judges, that is not the case at all. We know there are many good judges who do fine work and work long hours to do their work well. We commend them for the work they do. But in this present economic climate when most Canadians are not receiving an increase at all in their wages or at the most the wage increase is indexed to inflation, this kind of obscene raise does not sit well with Canadians.
It does not sit well with us in the Reform Party. It obviously does not sit well with my colleagues in the Bloc. I am happy our Bloc colleague brought this motion to the floor because it needs to be debated. The government's legislation needs to be challenged and I want to serve notice that I will be voting with my Bloc colleagues in support of this motion.
I think that when we do this there will be a chorus of Canadians across the country saying we voiced their concerns in the House of Commons today and they will be supportive of where we as opposition members stand.