Mr. Speaker, nobody has to agitate or stir up the most powerful voting constituency in the country. They are well informed. They are well organized. They can mobilize well and they can vote. That is what I was pointing out. This government should be served notice that it should be very cautious about taking on this particular group of Canadians because it would do so at its peril.
Frankly, this particular voting constituency could bring the government to its knees if provoked, and I have every reason to believe that they are being poked in the eye right now. They are are being provoked.
At no time in my speech did I ever imply that the current defined benefit they are enjoying is at risk. What I was commenting on is that the $30 billion surplus that is going to be taken out of the plan could be distributed amongst those low income retirees and their level of benefit would improve. Frankly, it is a defined benefit and it cannot even be negotiated at the bargaining table. The tacit agreement between the Pearson government and the employees at the time was that negotiations would never involve the pension. The pension would be fixed and defined by the House of Commons, not at the bargaining table.
There was a trade-off. The promise was that government would never alter the terms and conditions of the pension plan unilaterally, as it is doing now by jacking up the premiums and taking out the surplus. It is a promise broken. It is an an agreement that has been torn up. That might be where the hon. member got mixed up, if he was not listening carefully.