Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this limited opportunity to debate a very important issue for Canadians. They should know the abuse of democracy in this place. I have always viewed democracy as being a very fine way of getting the consensus of the governed. If we do not have the consensus of the governed in a democracy then government falls apart.
Democracy is voluntary. Each of us voluntarily subjects ourselves to the authority of the government because in a true democracy the government is under authority to the people who elect it. That is being seriously eroded by the present government.
I am speaking to the fact that we are dealing today with a bill being rammed through parliament by a government that has gone totally crazy with power. Just because it has a majority it can do whatever it wants and its spineless backbenchers vote on command. I wish there were someone over there with some principles. They were several two parliaments ago when the GST was being rammed through, greatly against the wishes of the people. There were several members who had the personal strength to vote the way they believed peopled wanted despite what their government was telling them. That was democratic. I will not make any individual references, but I have high respect for people who do things such as that.
I would like to see some Liberal backbenchers finally get up in this place and say enough. This is not democracy. This is not the will of the people. This is not the wish of the people. This is a dictatorship. That is a strong word. I almost do not like to use it, but that is what it is. That is what is being done here. It is unconscionable. It is unfortunate.
We have many reports of people losing respect for government. This is one way respect could be restored. It is one way we could just back off and cool down the whole process. It is time for us to do what is right and to do it in the right way.
We are dealing with public service pensions. I will not use the strong words of some members to my political left and my physical right, but it is absolutely atrocious. I feel very strongly about it as well. It is unconscionable that the bill should be rammed through. I hate to use the word arrogance because when I use it, it makes me sound arrogant. However there is arrogance in a government which believes that it alone can come up with the best way of doing things and that it cannot be touched. That is wrong.
For many years I taught at a technical institute. For many of those years I was a supervisor and I learned that I could not make all the best or perfect decisions. I consulted those I supervised whom I considered my peers because many of them had as much experience as I had. Certainly most of them had as much wisdom and maybe even as much intelligence, although that would be debatable. We had many good discussions and debates.
There were many times as their supervisor, even though I thought we should go in a certain direction, that I was persuaded by the collective wisdom of the others to change direction. Sometimes it was dramatically; sometimes it was minor changes. That is an effective way of managing not only the affairs of a small math department in a technical institute but the affairs of government.
I cannot believe members on the other side are ready to invest in two or three people the autocratic right to dictate the way this should be and not to say that we think some of these amendments are fine.
We are at report stage on Bill C-78 which concerns the pensions of civil servants. It just happens there are many amendments. I know I cannot use props so I will resist the temptation to use a copy of the bill as a prop. Because of its weight it has sunk right to the bottom of the pile on my desk.
It is a large bill. It has 200 pages. Consequently it is possible that one or two of its clauses or phrases are not quite perfect. What is the role of parliamentarians? It is to listen to each other. That does not mean there is a line down the middle of the House with all the collective wisdom on that side and nothing but stupidity on this side. That cannot be. That is illogical.
Therefore we have put forward a number of amendments. My hon. colleague from St. Albert said in committee that he wanted to have debated some of these amendments and others that he put forward. Basically he was shut down by the committee. Government members were so intent on ramming it through that they would not even let him debate the issues in committee.
We are continuously told that the role of parliamentarians is in committee; that is where the real work takes place.
If there is no effective give and take, negotiation and agreement to make changes in committee, then it has to take place here. I know it is speculation at this stage but we expect the government to limit our ability to debate. A number of members have already said that. I regret this. This is a big bill with many clauses and amendments. This will probably be my last opportunity to speak on the subject. I do not think that ought to be so.
There are several groups of amendments. It is absolutely shameful for this government to even think of shutting down debate before members have been given an opportunity to express themselves on these amendments. It is even more shameful that even though we do that, the government on the other side and all of those wimpy backbenchers will probably—I will not presuppose—just fold and do as they are told.
When it comes to pensions it is important to consider some basic thoughts. There is an MP pension plan. I am very proud to be one of the Reformers who opted out of that pension plan because it is unconscionable. It exempts this group of Canadians, namely the 301 in this House of Commons, from parts of the Income Tax Act so they can have a very very rich pension which is primarily paid for by others. It is true that members who participate make some contribution but the rate of contribution of the employer, namely the taxpayers, is way out of proportion. Because I do not believe we should be a privileged group, I opted out of it at great expense. It is an example of other people being expected to provide for the pension benefits of a person when he or she retires.
It was the same thing with the Canada pension plan. Mathematicians and actuaries did calculations and the politicians of the day for political reasons did not act on those recommendations. They underfunded the thing and now we are facing a 70% increase in premiums in order to fix it because of political considerations.
Now there is this pension plan. The question very simply is who should pay for it? The principle we generally recognize as fair especially in government is that there be an equal payment. About 50% of the money to fund the pension should come from the employee and about 50% should come from the employer, 1:1. If we had an MP pension plan like that, I would probably be permitted by my constituents to participate in it.
The question with regard to this pension plan is whether the government has the right to take the $30 billion in surplus. Clearly the actuaries have made a mistake and there is an adjustment to be made. We need to make sure the mathematics is done correctly. They have overcharged. Whose money is it? In my view close to half belongs to the taxpayer or the government and half belongs to the employees who have contributed to it.
For the government to unilaterally take it away without giving them their share deserves a very strong word which I am not permitted to use. It has to do with taking things that do not belong to you.