Madam Speaker, I am pleased indeed to speak to this bill today. I would like to repeat what the motions we are debating in Group No. 1 are about. Several of the amendments that are proposed in this group were presented by Reform. These motions deal pretty much with accountability.
One would find it hard to understand why the government would not support these amendments which would lead to more openness and more accountability on the part of government. Some of the things being asked are things which one would think any government would find acceptable.
For example, Motion No. 4 would force the board of directors of the PSPIB to establish and maintain contact on an ongoing basis with actuaries of each fund. That is something that I think we would find to be not only acceptable, but we would expect it to be part of the legislation. We have to wonder why it is not.
Motion No. 8 would force the government to lay before parliament a copy of the appointment establishing the chairperson of the PSPIB. I do not think the government should vote against this amendment. All we are asking for is a reasonable degree of openness in this regard.
Motion No. 11, which again is a Reform amendment, is similar to Motion No. 2, except that it would deal specifically with the investment committee of the board and not the board as a whole. Again it is asking for more accountability.
With Motion No. 16 all we are asking for is openness and accountability. I do not believe that this government should oppose these amendments. This motion would force an act of parliament to be passed in order for changes to be made to the contribution rates.
Bill C-78 currently reads that rates are determined by the Treasury Board on the recommendation of the minister. Why on something this important, affecting this many Canadians, would it be done in the backrooms? Indeed, why should this process not come before parliament so that it would be a very open and transparent process?
I can ask the questions, but it is up to the government to provide the answers. It is not providing the answers. Not only is it not providing the answers to the questions that we are asking on these issues, it is also going to invoke closure or time allocation on this legislation and it will not allow debate.
I think it is important to talk about that and the process that this government has used. I believe it has invoked time allocation 51 times. It has become routine in a way that we have never seen with any government before, even the hated Mulroney government. We know how Canadians felt about the Mulroney government by the time it was near the end of its second term. Even the Mulroney government did not abuse the use of closure and time allocation the way this government has. It has set a new standard and it is not a standard about which it should proud. It is a standard about which the government should be completely ashamed. I will talk more about that a little later.
One of the big concerns about this legislation, which has been expressed several times before, is that the government is proposing to rob the public service pension plan of $30 billion. It wants to take $30 billion out of the public service pension plan. That is completely unacceptable.
It is hard to understand how a government which talks like it supports the public service can propose this kind of action. It is really hard to understand. We do not understand it, except when we look at the record over the past five years. When we look at the record of the government we see tax increase after tax increase after tax increase. It has balanced the budget, eliminated the deficit, on the basis of tax increases. The revenue is up somewhere over $25 billion per year from the time the Liberals took office. There have been incredible increases in the amount of taxation.
Some of the increase is due to growth in the economy, but much of it is due to tax increases. Frankly, I lost track after the first several dozen tax increases of just how many there have been, but the number is certainly substantial.
Now we have a balanced budget due to the increase in taxes. We would think that the tax grab would stop. Not only has the tax grab not stopped, now the government is trying to rob the public service pension plan of $30 billion besides the incredible tax burden it has put on people.
We have the public service pension plan and the people involved in it treated in this way. What about other Canadians? What we have seen from this government with regard to pensions of other Canadians over the five years that we have been here is a record about which it ought not to be proud. We have seen reductions in pensions to seniors that have caused hardship to many of the seniors involved. Such reductions in pensions to seniors, one of the most vulnerable groups in our society, is completely unacceptable.
We have seen Canada pension plan premiums increase by 73% and that probably will not be the end of it. It is a plan that can offer a maximum of $8,800 a year to someone upon retirement, yet we are looking at 10% of income which will be put into the premiums in this plan. That is an unacceptable development. Reform has proposed an alternative to this proposal put forward by the government which would offer Canadians, especially young Canadians, but all Canadians, a much better return on their pension plan dollars.
So far that has been rejected by the government. Instead it tries to take $30 billion out of the public service pension plan, and it will be successful. I can stand here right now and say that it will be successful. The reason is that we do not have a functioning democracy in this House.
I have been spending a lot of time lately in Toronto working with new immigrant groups and people from new immigrant communities. Several have commented that what they see in our government in Canada is not a properly functioning democracy but is more like an elected dictatorship. These are not concepts I have heard first from these people. I have heard them from people across the country. However, they are comparing Canada to democracies in which they have lived, come from or seen. They are comparing our Canadian political system to political systems from other countries, and ours does not compare in a positive way to democracies in other countries.
Part of what those people see that leads them to the conclusion that we have an elected dictatorship rather than a well-functioning democracy is the number of times time allocation and closure have been used in the House of Commons. I believe they have been used 51 times. With the government invoking time allocation on this bill, which, mark my words, it will, it will be 52. Is that a democracy functioning as it should? I think not. Those people have recognized that and they are very concerned about it.
I would encourage the government to stop using time allocation and closure as a routine way of forcing legislation through the House of Commons. It is forced through for two main reasons. The first reason is to stop a debate from developing across the country on these important issues. These issues are kept within the confines of this House. There is not enough debate across the country to really have a healthy, open debate, involving all Canadians. Second, the Prime Minister and his very small group who run this country use time allocation so the policies and changes they want will pass. Then they use their whips to whip their members into line.
We are going to see that again with this legislation. Mark my words. Watch the voting record on the groups of amendments we are debating today. We will see that all government members will vote the way they are told to vote. No matter what they believe is right, they will vote the way they are told to vote. That is wrong. I think they should be ashamed of themselves.