Mr. Speaker, I have a comment and a question for the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.
First, it is terrible that debate is so limited on a bill that is almost one inch thick. It is a very important bill in our country, which has a public sector pension plan. The government wants to help itself to $30 billion of the surpluses and pull the same stunt it pulled with EI. This year, the surplus in the EI fund will reach $27 billion.
As I have already said in the House, there are still people in this country who open their fridge in the morning and find nothing in it. They have nothing to feed their children before sending them off the school. Workers have been robbed; there is no other word for it.
I would like to know whether my colleague agrees with me. Is a precedent not being set with this bill in the House of Commons? The government is going to help itself to surpluses without workers' consent. It is opening the door for corporations, which have long wanted to get their hands on pension fund surpluses. Workers have always been opposed, as have governments.
Today, the government is setting a precedent. It will no longer have any argument against big corporations that want to dip into their workers' pension funds.
It will no longer have any argument when big corporations tell it they want access to surpluses in order to invest them elsewhere. Employees are going to have to pay higher and higher premiums, because there will not be enough money in these depleted pension funds, as the corporations will have got their hands on the money. This is an unacceptable precedent. The government ought not to be taking the country in that direction.
I would like to hear the comments of my colleague from Saint—Hyacinthe—Bagot on how important it is for the government not to act in this way, and particularly on how little time we have to debate this bill. We parliamentarians are not even being given the opportunity to say what we think. We cannot come to the House to express our opinions, to explain our point of view on behalf of the Canadians who sent us here.
It makes no difference whether one is on the left or on the right. We no longer know which way this House is going to go. Every time the Liberals want to pass a bill, they stop us from speaking in this House. They take away our rights as parliamentarians to defend Canadians. This is unacceptable.
I would like to hear my colleague's comments on the two questions I have asked, because the Liberals are not doing their job in this country at the present time.