Debates of May 11th, 1999

Public Sector Pension Investment Board Act

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be able to spend a little time debating Bill C-78 and I have to emphasize a little time.

The bill was introduced at first reading in the House on Thursday, April 22. The following week, on April 27, it came up for second reading and the government immediately introduced closure. Before we knew it, second reading was over and done with, out of the House and off to committee before we had any time to debate the bill in detail.

Last week the bill was in committee. We had witnesses on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. By Thursday morning, the bill was in committee for clause by clause. This happens to be a 200-page bill, 200 pages of complex technical points. It deals with $100 billion. It is the livelihood of the retirees of the civil service. It is a bill that calls for the privatization of $100 billion of government debt over a number of years.

One would have thought that the bill would have merited some serious attention by members of parliament even if only for the fact that the pension of members of parliament happens to be part of the bill.

Last week we had witnesses on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and that was all the government members were prepared to allow to come before the committee. Although I suggested other organizations and people who would have an interest in speaking to the bill, the government said that it did not want to hear about it, that it wanted to get on with it.

Last Thursday morning, the bill was in committee for clause by clause. I have not added up how many clauses there are in a 200-page bill because they were not consecutively numbered and there were a large number of amendments. However, suffice it to say there were several hundred clauses and we were there to deal with clause by clause. If I had not been in committee last week, the committee would have dealt with all 200 pages of clauses in 10 minutes or even less if it had the opportunity.

I tried to have debate in committee but, while I could raise the issues I wanted to, I was severely limited in my capacity to debate the issue because of the constraints imposed upon me by the committee.

I raise it in debate this morning because they told me I could appeal to the Speaker of the House if I was not satisfied. However, members know very well that any time an incident in committee is appealed to the House, the Speaker rules that the committees are the masters of their own house and thus we cannot appeal to the Speaker.

Before I get into talking about the motions this morning, I would like to put on the record that I put up a valiant attempt to have the whole bill debated in detail in committee rather than consuming a huge amount of time in the House by people who are not interested in the particular bill. There are some members who do have a serious interest in the bill and I happen to be one of them. If we could have dealt with that in committee it would have saved the boredom for those in the House who are not interested in it.

I understand it is not improbable that now that it is back in the House the government may decide that it does not want to talk about the bill for very long and debate may be closed off once more. We will have to wait to see how events unfold, but I would not be surprised if the government feels that another two or three hours of debate on this 200-page bill, $100 billion in assets and directly affecting 700,000 Canadians, requires no significant debate in the House at all.

I have the transcript from the committee meeting. I will read just a couple of things in order to give the House an indication of what actually went on in committee. On page 13 of the transcript I said:

There is no limit on my time, Mr. Chairman, I'm not aware. Can you tell me where I'm limited on my time?

This was when it was severely curtailing what I felt was my privilege to speak in committee. The chairman replied:

It certainly is at the discretion of the chair to allow a reasonable amount of time for debate and discussion of clauses. And when at such time the question is called, and I will seek some degree of leniency from my colleagues to call a question, after an appropriate amount time, at which time I'll use my best judgment to wind up the questions and call the question.

I might have been talking at that time about 20 or 30 clauses that had been lumped into one debate and I was limited to two minutes. How could I intelligently talk about that amount of clauses in two minutes and do it justice, do my constituents justice and do justice for the people who are concerned about the bill. It was an absolute impossibility.

I will now refer to some comments by the member for Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte in Newfoundland. As he was interrupting my speech, he said:

It appears that we're getting into very...discussion here about...we have a very specific task at hand. It's to pass this bill, with or without amendments.

I thought we were there to discuss the bill not to pass the bill. That was definitely the attitude of my colleagues on the government side because later on, on the same page, I am quoted as saying:

...Mr. Chairman, and you're again denying the right to speak to individual issues because of members calling the question.

As soon as any member of the government called the question, meaning calling for the vote, it meant the end of debate. As soon as I started to speak someone would call for the question and that was the end of the debate in committee. It was an affront to the democratic process in the House. No one was prepared to enter into serious debate or analysis, or checking the bill to see that it was appropriate.

I will mention another comment that I made in committee. I said:

Mr. Chairman, you know, they're rather testy around the table this morning, and I would have thought that since there was very little time to debate in the House we would have had more opportunity to debate in committee.

On it went. They shut me down at every opportunity. There is page after page of attempts by me to raise specific issues on the bill, to debate amendments I had tabled regarding the bill, and to improve the governance of $100 billion of assets.

I recommended at one time that the auditor general be the auditor who would be required to do the special audits which the bill calls for because he has expertise in that area. He has perhaps the best expertise and is the most qualified person in the country.

I would have thought for a $100 billion pool of capital that we would have wanted the best in the country to do the special evaluations and assessments. Unfortunately there was no opportunity. Government members were not the slightest bit interested in hearing, debating, discussing or suggesting any improvements to the bill whatsoever.

Three minute changes were proposed by the government. I think one word was changed. The word “and” was deleted and the word “or” was inserted, or vice versa.

Government members recognized at second reading of the bill that they had made some mistakes in drafting it. They were not interested in talking about substantive change. They were not even talking about analysing for minute change. They strictly wanted to pass the bill, and if there were mistakes in the complexity they would fix it up later on, a travesty that I wanted on the record.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a rather sad day today, as we are discussing Bill C-78.

The government is picking on people who already are not well off. I have looked at the statistics a bit and I found that retired public servants are currently getting about $9,000 a year.

Obviously, the funds have accumulated some surpluses. Yet, instead of trying to improve the annual income of its retirees, or lowering the contributions made by today's workers, this government is drooling at the prospect of other surpluses and is dying to get its hands on them.

I got into politics in order to do my bit for justice, and I feel obliged to speak to this bill because I see it as totally unfair.

I will start with how the government has managed public funds since the Liberals came into power in 1993, because of what is going on now. The government is patting itself on the back for having succeeded in reducing the deficit, started paying down the debt, everything is great. But we need to have a look at how this was accomplished, how the government and the Minister of Finance in particular handle the public finances.

First, they began by cutting transfer payments to the provinces. The government had some responsibilities toward them. And what did the current government do in the first years it was in power? It announced: “We are going to transfer less money”, which means that it kept more for itself.

The second thing it addressed was another surplus, the one in the employment insurance fund, an annual surplus of $6 billion to $7 billion, and an accumulated surplus of $20 billion to $25 billion. The government siphoned off the money in this fund at the expense of the workers. It then congratulated itself “See how well we are running things”.

Meanwhile, the provinces and the jobless are paying for it. They are the ones who bore the brunt of paying down the deficit. They are the ones whose contributions or cuts in benefits are being applied to paying down Canada's debt.

Pay equity is also involved. During those years, the government unfairly paid women working in the federal public service. These are the women who paid off the deficit. They are paying off the debt.

Let us now take a look at the pillage in the employee pension fund, because that is what we can call it, we are not talking about peanuts here. We are talking about $14.9 billion for the public service. A lot of these people work in my riding. There are some 200 or 300 who work in the federal public service at the Saint-Jean military base.

The RCMP will be sacrificing $2.4 billion and the Canadian armed forces, $12.9, for a total of $30.2 billion.

What we are seeing today with Bill C-78 amounts to pillaging this fund. It recalls for me unfortunate examples from the past.

This morning, as I prepared my speech, I thought of Robert Maxwell, the famous British media magnate, who travelled the oceans of the world on his huge 60 foot boat. He was one of the first to take money from pensions of his own workers.

I see the President of the Treasury Board travelling about on his own Titanic . I would remind him that the Titanic 's owners, in their arrogance and invincibility, claimed it was unsinkable. I remind the President of the Treasury Board and the members of the government, especially, of that fact and tell them that it is not too late to drop their arrogance and their thoughts of invincibility.

There will be no problem if they consider the amendments the Bloc Quebecois is proposing today, but I know that the members of the government tend to say “This is the way we are going, and you will follow us. We will let you have a few debates in the House. When it no longer suits us, and it has gone on long enough, we will call for closure”.

I appeal to government members and to the President of the Treasury Board to look at the amendments the Bloc is proposing and, for once, to drop their arrogance and their thoughts of invincibility in this House.

I consider it disdain by the majority, when it goes ahead totally oblivious of the opposition. We do represent the people of Canada and Quebec. The government should listen to the opposition a little more and make certain amendments to bills instead of heading off, visor lowered, saying “You will follow us. If you are not happy, we will use closure”.

I call on hon. members to look at the amendments moved by the Bloc Quebecois to avoid penalizing public service retirees, who currently have an annual income of about $9,000.

Let us also not forget what the President of the Treasury Board did about this issue. In 1996, an advisory committee was set up and the minister said “Make recommendations to me and we will see what we can do”. In 1998, the President of the Treasury Board said in a press release “The consultations may lead to a partnership that could result in the establishment of a management board in the public service that would be independent of the government”.

In actual fact, the first group of amendments moved by the Bloc Quebecois seek to create a management board that would deal at arm's length with the government. However, we forgot to take into account someone who may be the future leader of the Liberal Party. We forgot to take into account the Minister of Finance who, in managing the public purse, probably said to the President of the Treasury Board “My dear friend, we will look at the $30 billion surplus and we will try to get our hands on it”.

This is just as I said earlier: cuts in the transfers to the provinces and siphoning off of money from the employment insurance fund, which belongs to the unemployed. The Minister of Finance has a big say in all this, because he is the one holding the purse strings. Workers must not forget that he is probably behind this bill, even though it was introduced by his colleague, the President of the Treasury Board.

One also wonders about the signal that is being sent to private businesses. Earlier, I alluded to Mr. Maxwell who is travelling all over the world on his big boat, with his employees' pension fund.

A bill like this one will send signals if it is passed. I would propose the most striking example from my riding, that of the pillage of the fund of the former employees of the Singer company. For a number of years, the Bloc Quebecois has been trying to get through to the government and remind it of its fiduciary responsibility for this fund.

The answer we get is “No, there is no problem. No, we have no commitment in that. We were not the watchdog, settle your own problems”. We might well wonder whether these responses were conditioned by the government's intention to introduce the bill before us today.

How would it have looked if the government had told the Singer Company or if its representatives had told themselves, as those responsible for the fund, “That is right, we have a share in the responsibility. We should not have allowed the company to pillage the Singer employees' pension fund”? This however was not the government's intention. It could see the surplus that was accumulating.

It was beginning to realize that it had to take the surplus, that if it acknowledged its responsibilities toward the people at Singer, it would have to give up the surplus and ensure that it went to retired workers. We can see all the intentions of this government.

In the case of other companies as well, we have often been told by the Minister of Human Resources Development, who is responsible for the matter “There are other companies, so we cannot follow up on your request”.

This is a terrible example for private employers to follow now. They will be able to do as the government does and let workers down.

The dictatorship of the majority must stop. It is time to stop treating employees with disdain. The government has an opportunity today to set its arrogance aside. It could also set aside its great superiority and invincibility complex aside and listen to what the opposition parties have to say, include it in the bill and amend the bill to give us something potable in the future. This is not just for those now retired, but also for those who will be retiring from the public service.

The government must assume its responsibility. If the government does not do that, the Bloc Quebecois will naturally oppose Bill C-78.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I sense this will be the last opportunity I will have to talk to Bill C-78 or any amendments to it. Even though four groups of amendments were taken from the many that were put forward, we have reason to believe that some time during the day today the government will again move closure on debate and shut down the opportunity for us to talk to the 30, 40 or 50 amendments which really need to be debated. It is a pattern that has developed right from day one of the debate on Bill C-78. We have every reason to believe, given the history and the pattern, that it will happen again today.

I will take this opportunity to say a few words in the short period of time I have on some of the many amendments which our party put forward to try to clean up what we feel is a very flawed bill. I am tempted to say it is a flawed bill, but it is not a flawed bill. In a way it is a masterful piece of work. It is a true piece of art in the way it was put together so the government could achieve what it set out to achieve. It will take the $30 billion surplus from retirees, pensioners and beneficiaries of the pension plans and use it for whatever purposes it sees fit.

I want to condemn the government in the strongest possible language I am allowed to use. Unfortunately I am limited in what things I can say about the bill. There are many things I could say about it. I cannot use the word theft. I do not intend to try the Speaker's patience by using the word theft, stealing, highway robbery or any of the other words that come to mind. I will not say those things because I know I am not supposed to do so.

I guess I would have to ask the Chair if I could use the word excrement. Is the word excrement allowed in the House of Commons? That is one word which certainly comes to mind. I do not believe it is in the book. If members worked in a circus and it was their job to follow the elephants in a parade, the stuff they would be sweeping up would pretty well typify or exemplify what we are dealing with today. The word travesty was used earlier and I am not going to repeat it over and over again.

There are not many Liberals here today to listen to these final words of debate on Bill C-78. I do not blame them for not being here, although I have some admiration for the Liberals who hang around to listen to this kind of thing. It must be hard not to get jaded about the whole political and parliamentary process when Liberal backbenchers are used as nothing more than a focus group for cabinet when it wants to ram something through.

It is going to be those members sitting here today listening to this who will have to go back to their ridings to justify, defend and explain that the senior citizens are going to have their pockets picked to the tune of $30 billion. I admire those who have the courage to come here and face the music. I wish them well when they go back to their ridings.

Opposition to this bill is building up steam as we speak. Right across the country seniors are rallying. They are getting together to study this bill, and it takes a long time to digest a bill of this size.

That is exactly what the government is trying to avoid because it saw what happened when it tried to tamper with the OAS and the GIS and when it tried to create the new seniors benefit. That committee toured the country and seniors had a chance to look at it in some detail. Seniors had a chance to mobilize, to voice their opinions and to tell the government that they did not want a new seniors benefit which actually resulted in less benefit for them. They did not want the GIS and the OAS to be merged into one so-called seniors benefit. That is exactly what is happening with this bill. The government has to stop it in its tracks because there is too much opposition right across the country.

The largest single group of beneficiaries, the federal superannuates national association, had 12 hours to prepare. Representatives were called the night before to make a presentation to the committee the next morning. They complained vigorously that they did not have a chance to prepare a proper presentation. They did not even have a chance to read the 200 pages of text that makes up Bill C-78. Seniors now, because they pay attention to the news and read the papers, are a very well informed group of voters and they are catching on in large numbers.

Like every good son, I had brunch with my mother on Sunday. She collects a pension through the public service pension plan. It was a very nice brunch. She collects the survivor's benefit because my father worked in the public sector all of his life and she survives on the meagre survivor's benefit that she gets. She lives in the same little wartime house at 998 Warsaw that I grew up in. Betty Martin, who is 82 years old and lives in Winnipeg, asked me at brunch, unprompted I might add, “Are they going to take away my pension?”

I had to answer, to be fair, that nothing was going to happen to the pension she is currently collecting. However, I told her that the $30 billion surplus would be taken out of the fund. Her question was “Is that not part of our pension?” That is an innocent question which came right out of the blue. An 82 year old woman saw immediately what was happening. Without reading the text she knew that it was fundamentally wrong to take $30 billion out of the pension fund which could have gone to improve the benefits of pensioners and retirees.

This whole thing got off to a bad start because of one statement made by the chief human resources officer of the Treasury Board Secretariat in June 1998. I will quote Mr. Alain Jolicoeur because I want to get this right. He made one statement that started the ball rolling on this whole atrocity. He said “Employees and retirees have no proprietary interest to the surplus in the superannuation plan”. He defied all conventional wisdom on employee benefit plans by saying “The surplus is not yours. You get your benefits, but the surplus is not yours”.

It is a basic tenet of anybody who is involved with employee benefit plans that any surplus is deferred wages. It is part of the pay package. It is money being held in trust to improve the benefits of the beneficiaries of the plan. That is where we got off to a bad start.

The President of the Treasury Board made it worse when he came out publicly and said even more strongly “There is no chance in hell that the union can claim a $30 billion surplus”.

First of all, he is wrong. It is not the union that is trying to claim the money. None of that money would go to the union. The union is arguing that it should go to the beneficiaries. His quote was “They do not have a chance in hell of getting their hands on it”. The government had made up its mind in a cold and callous way. It had targeted that money and then it set about taking very logical steps to take it.

This is a pattern we have seen before. The government took $25 billion from the EI surplus, which was taken from the most vulnerable people in society, the unemployed. Now it is taking money away from arguably the next most vulnerable bunch of people in society, the retirees, senior citizens, pensioners, beneficiaries of the pension plan, many of whom live in poverty.

We should not let anybody tell us that this is some kind of Cadillac pension we are dealing with. A disproportionate number of retirees are female. The average woman, with 20 years of service in the federal public service, is receiving a pension of approximately $9,000 a year. This is not a Cadillac pension. Nobody is living in luxury as a result of it.

If that $30 billion were divided up among the beneficiaries it would result in about $30,000 per beneficiary. Spread out over the period of their retirement it might mean $2,000 or $3,000 a year per beneficiary. Again, $9,000 to $11,000 or $12,000 is not a huge amount of dough.

I will not get a chance to speak to many of the motions which I put forward, but obviously we have put forward amendments to this bill that would take away the enabling language that was cleverly put in to allow the government to take not only this $30 billion surplus, but all other surpluses; all future surpluses which will be invested by the public sector pension investment board.

At the very least, one of the amendments that we put forward dealt with that board and the pension investment policies that it might be bound to or that might be stipulated. The legislation is really silent on that. The only goal would be to produce the maximum profit. Obviously that has to be the first goal of any trustees of a pension plan.

We would argue that there should be some ethical investment policies as well. For instance, the government should not invest in any company that might be engaged in a service that is contracted out which would cost public service members their jobs. What if it were a janitorial company that was bidding on a contract to clean the House of Commons? The people who traditionally do those jobs would be laid off and replaced with people from a company in which their pension plan is invested. That would be fundamentally wrong. I think the beneficiaries would want to speak out against that. They will not get a chance to speak out against it now. That is just one example of how many things need to be discussed and we will not get a chance to discuss them. It is deplorable. It is excrement.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Natural Resources and Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board]

Mr. Speaker, I thank hon. members for participating in the debate. The answer to the question the hon. member asked is, I would assume, based on the fact that the Speaker did not provide a ruling, that excrement is indeed a word that is applicable and usable in the House. However, I would simply ask that hon. members present who are participating in this debate not use bathroom humour, however playful or however humourous it may seem at the time. This is a very serious piece of legislation and I would like to elevate the debate to make sure that we continue to focus on the issues at hand. Hon. members, I am sure, would like to engage in a bit of playful conversation during the course of the debate, but I think that our responsibility and what we are charged to do here is to stick to the issues at hand, the specifics of this legislation and the needs of our respective constituents.

Hon. members opposite have raised the issue that certain pensions should be based not on the contributions or the formula that the pension plan was based on, but that consideration should be given for lower income pensioners or lower pension levels and that those levels should indeed be topped up. I understand the merit and general detail of that particular proposal. I think it is a very kindhearted idea. In my own personal view it has some merit.

Basically, those who contribute to the pension plan are all public servants. They really want and need the pension plan to be devised and to be implemented on a formula based approach which is accountable and fair so they will know exactly where their money is going as they contribute. That is the way the policyholders themselves would like the pension plan to be administered. I ask hon. members opposite to bear that in mind.

One final point is that there was some reference made by a member of the Reform Party, who I understand is also chairman of the public accounts committee, who attended the committee hearings on natural resources and government operations which reviewed this particular legislation at second reading. A point has to be made. When the committee was considering this particular piece of legislation what it was faced and charged with, in part, was to look at specific amendments; in other words, specific ideas that the opposition had as to how it would change the legislation.

There were very few amendments put forward by the opposition. As a procedural matter the amendments were grouped in various sections. We debated the amendments in those sections, which proved to be a very efficient and effective way of dealing with the legislation.

The point that has to be made is that debate in committee has to be based on specific ideas that have been brought forward by any member of the committee. We as government House members and government committee members did indeed put forward specific proposals for change to the legislation. We debated those and in some measure we got them through in committee. Very few amendments were put forward by the opposition to this particular legislation. Therefore, that in itself was a limitation on debate. The issue at that point in time became whether the legislation as it was currently drafted by the government would indeed be passed at the committee stage.

That is a point in which I think members of the House would be interested. Many of the people who spoke here this morning were not in attendance at committee where much of the work of the House is conducted from the point of view of reviewing legislation, reviewing different amendments and talking about the general issues surrounding the legislation.

I am pleased that members opposite have now joined the debate at this stage. It would have been very helpful if they had joined the debate at the committee stage, but that is their choice. Now we have a chance to renew the debate. We have to maintain a focus on very specific issues. I say to members opposite that we should try to not get involved in too much bathroom humour. It is too serious a piece of legislation to do that and I think that members of the pension plan and members of the general public expect a bit more dignity and decorum in the House.

I would like to thank the House for its indulgence and I would like to proceed with this very useful debate.

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Madam Speaker, it is with a degree of sadness that I rise today to speak to Bill C-78. I believe that many members of the House, including members on the government side, share this sense of remorse for the process in which we are participating. We feel very badly that we are participating in what effectively, and let us be candid about it, is a parliamentary charade. Canadians can watch this on CPAC. Somehow, in some way, the government is trying to demonstrate that there is legitimate parliamentary debate on important public policy issues, in this case Bill C-78, which is a 200 page bill, a complicated piece of legislation which affects all Canadian public servants and entails remarkable changes, sweeping changes, relative to $100 billion ultimately.

Canadians may, in watching this, actually believe that there has been legitimate debate. I would like to inform Canadians who may be watching that there has not been legitimate debate. The government has railroaded this through parliament, through the committee process, through the House and has utilized closure again. The government has, at an unprecedented rate, used the instrument of closure to railroad legislation through parliament. It has not allowed the committee to effectively study this important piece of legislation.

The government claims that the main purpose of the legislation is to improve the financial management of the financial sector pension funds and the superannuate funds of the federal public servants, RCMP and military. Keep in mind that the average annual pension for these individuals is around $9,000 per year. These are not fat cats we are talking about. They are very average Canadians.

We should be sceptical whenever the government claims to have the interest of public servants at heart, particularly if we look at the record of the government on public servants. Sunday's Ottawa Citizen said that the Treasury Board president “has clobbered public servants harder than any cabinet minister in Canada's history”.

The politics of attacking public servants is similar to the politics of attacking politicians. It is very easy to attack a group that may not be particularly popular with the public because of misperceptions, or to make gratuitous attacks on the banking sector which the government has been willing to do.

It is very cynical that the government would use in a political sense any tool it has to attack groups that may not be incredibly popular but are groups that have legitimate causes and claims. For the government to play a very dangerous and cynical political game of pitting one group of Canadians against another simply for political expediency and political palatability is atrocious.

The government has eliminated 55,000 federal jobs, has frozen wages, has eliminated job security from the public service and has appealed the pay equity ruling in opposition to Liberal Party policy. I think it was a red book promise. It is a government that continues to use heavy-handed back to work legislation and suspends binding arbitration. This is the same Liberal Party that under the leadership of Lester Pearson introduced collective bargaining to the public service 30 years ago.

The current government leaders and the Prime Minister are being the patron saints of hypocrisy in backtracking on every major tenet of not just Liberal policy, but also of the fundamentals of fairness we value as Canadians.

It is the government that introduced back to work legislation to end a strike of 14,000 blue collar workers. Again, these are not high income workers within the public service. The government maintained the policy of regional rates of pay and a ghettoization of public servants. It introduced the back to work legislation without proper debate and sought closure.

The President of the Treasury Board reached a tentative agreement with the public servants and withheld that information from parliament before a crucial vote. That night he snookered the Reform Party. Unwittingly the Reform Party supported the back to work legislation because the government had pitted the interests of one group against another, in this case the grain farmers and the grain industry in the west against the interests of blue collar public servants.

Again that was cynical. It was an abuse of the parliamentary process and an abuse of members of parliament that should not only offend the Reform Party members, and I am sure it does, but it should also offend members of parliament on the government side of the House who watched that night and who participated in the vote without the proper information.

The level of morale in the public service is at an all-time low. While Canadian corporations are pursuing innovative labour-management and human resources management policies, the government is continuing to attack the public service and ignore the fact that the public sector represents 40% of the Canadian economy.

I see some hon. members present who serve on the finance committee with me. We are studying the issue of productivity. When 40% of our economy is public sector and the government has created a level of morale that has never been lower within the public service, I would argue that we have a productivity issue within our public service. This government through its continued gratuitous attacks on the public service has had a significant deleterious effect on the morale and the productivity of the federal public service. It has impacted the growth and future prosperity of Canadians in doing so.

The only group this government has demonstrated more contempt for besides public servants is members of parliament in this House. The government is persistent in its propensity to use closure and to railroad legislation through committees and through this House without legitimate and important public policy debate. Committees are being operated as branch plants of the ministers' offices. Government members are told to pass bills but not really discuss them. There is no objective, constructive development of public policy as there should be and at a time when public policy and the challenges facing us are very complex.

There has been a secular decline in the role of the MP which has occurred over a 30 year period. This decline has occurred at a precipitous level under this government.

With this legislation the government is failing to follow its own guidelines set out in S-3, the pension benefits standards act for the private sector. It sets out guidelines for the private sector and for private sector employers which the government itself is unwilling to use. Why is it doing that? Because it wants to get its hands on that $30 billion surplus.

The government would tell Canadians that that money is being applied to the debt. Keep in mind, in some ways it is a theoretical number; it is just a paper shift. The fact is that the government has not done anything to better Canadians by taking that from one group and putting it against the national debt.

The government has done something it believes to benefit itself politically. Come the next election the government will claim credit and say that it reduced the debt by the figure of $30 billion when it has not. Public servants through their pensions and their sacrifices, work and contributions over the years have provided the ability for the government to have that surplus and the government is taking that in a very cynical way.

I have said cynical several times. I feel very cynical today to be participating in this process where the government is again pitting the Canadian public against the public service, creating more division in a country that needs more unity. We should be working particularly in a post-deficit and a surplus environment to rebuild our relationships as parliamentarians and as government with the public service.

The Federal Superannuates National Association, the FSNA, has done a very good job on this, as have other organizations. The federal superannuates were effective in their lobby against the seniors benefit package which through clawbacks would have reduced pension benefits for seniors.

This government is not focused on creating better prosperity for Canadians. This government is focused solely on the next election and not on the next century. This treatment of parliament and of public servants has to end.

[Eric C. Lowther, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill.

As the hon. member for St. Albert has pointed out so rightly, the time we have had to bring to light the various issues in this bill before the Canadian people has been cut short again. It is a tragic abuse of this House. There are some very significant factors in this bill that need to be brought to the attention of Canadians. I will focus on a couple of them this morning.

I want to preface my remarks to Group No. 2 amendments. We are only on Group No. 1 amendments at the moment. I do want to point out that I have some very serious concerns with Group No. 2 which I will be addressing later in the day.

It is important for us to ask in this House when new legislation comes along, how is it serving the Canadian people? With this piece of legislation it is important to look at the before picture and the after picture. What was it like before and what is it going to be like after?

My particular concerns revolve around the pension board itself, the people who administer and manage the funds on behalf of the employees of the Canadian government including the MPs in this very House. Prior to this legislation the way the board operated or how the fund was managed was under the scrutiny of the auditor general. The House was aware of any changes that were made. There was public scrutiny. That served the public interest and the employees covered by this plan.

What does this legislation propose to do in that arena? It proposes tragically to completely remove any kind of public scrutiny of the management of these public service pension plans. It proposes to set up a totally independent separate board, a board of people managing this fund who are appointed to their positions. I have seen no reference in the act to any sort of qualifications or skill sets for this particular job. They are appointed to the positions.

There is no option for the employees or those in the union to be represented on the board. It is their own pension plan and there is no allowance for them to be represented on the board.

There is absolutely no allowance for access to information which there was prior to this bill. If someone wanted to find out some of the details about how the fund was being managed or some aspect of the ongoing management, there was the option to do that with the current legislation. With the establishment of a new arm's length board, the access to information regulations and legislation will not apply.

In the before picture the auditor general had the purview to look at this fund, to see how it was being managed and the decisions that were being made. After this legislation, guess what? It is gone. The auditor general does not have access to or will not critique the management of this fund.

We can see a consistent number of changes with this legislation that move the management of this fund of so many public service employees of the Canadian government out of public scrutiny.

The thrust of the amendments by the hon. member for St. Albert is that they try to bring back some of the accountability to the members, the employees and the public in general as to how this fund is being managed.

[An hon. member]

Backbench Liberals will support that.

[Eric C. Lowther, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

I hear a member commenting that hopefully backbench members from the Liberal Party will support that. I do not hold out much hope for that because we have seen them before, when the orders come down they fold their tents and line up.

The amendments we brought forward in Group No. 1 are specifically designed to bring the accountability in this pension plan back to the Canadian people and to the employees covered by the plan. I will cover the thrust of the amendments for those who are listening and for those in the House today.

Motion No. 4 would force the board of directors of this new separately established pension board to maintain contact on an ongoing basis with the actuaries of each fund the board manages. In other words, this forces them to look at how the fund is actually being managed, to get the report from those who are looking at how many people are drawing from the fund, how many people are putting into the fund, how it is going to survive in the long term.

Our concern is that this appointed board with no accountability may not look at what is actually going on. It may make decisions without full consideration of the long term implications of those decisions. We are trying to bring some quality control back into the process.

The hon. member for St. Albert put forward Motions Nos. 8 and 11 which deal with reporting to the House who the appointed chairperson is and who are the members of the board. At present there is no obligation to inform us. Let us think about that. This is a public service pension plan for the employees of the federal government. This House, this institution, is not advised who is managing the pension plan as a result of this new piece of legislation.

Thankfully the member for St. Albert put forward some motions which would at least let us know what is going on, who are the players and hopefully their credentials for the job. This is the thrust of our amendments. Consistent with the Reform, we are calling for greater accountability in the management of public funds.

Let us look at some of the other Reform amendments. I look at Motion No. 16 which would force an act of parliament to be passed in order for changes to be made to the contribution rates. Who would this protect? It would protect the employees who are contributing to the pension plan. Without this protection rates can go up or down. If there is a surplus in the fund we know the legislation would allow the Liberal government to get a hold of it. This is a checkpoint, a way of controlling management of the fund and protecting employees from potential abuses.

Before there is any increase in the rates they will be brought before the House and an act of parliament would be required for them to be adjusted. It just makes sense. Without that there is no protection.

Let us look at Motion No. 32. Members can see the consistent theme in all Reform motions: greater accountability in the process. I do not have near enough time to cover all amendments on the the whole theme of the bill.

A number of amendments drive home the need for greater accountability, but I will not have enough time to deal with them. For the 51st or 52nd time the Liberal government has forced closure on important pieces of legislation so we cannot bring to light the critical considerations the Canadian public needs to be aware of to see how the Liberal government is mismanaging public funds. We are calling for greater accountability in this area.

With great chagrin I have to stop. I hope my colleagues in the House have heard my appeal. We have to bring forth some accountability by supporting the Reform amendments the hon. member for St. Albert has put forward on behalf of Canadian people and employees in this plan.

[Jean-Paul Marchand, Bloc, Québec East, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on Bill C-78, which is essentially, for those who do not know, a bill giving the present government the power to get its hands of $30 billion in surplus funds in the federal employees' pension plans.

We are not talking here of $30 million, but $30 billion. This is a bill that gives the federal government the power to get its hands on that money and to use it as it sees fit. In other words, this gives the government a great deal of power, even allowing it, to a certain extent, to treat those who have contributed to this pension fund most unfairly.

What gives the federal government the power to do this is a grey area of the law. There is apparently nothing in federal law at this time that governs the use of pension fund surpluses, nothing that makes sure they are used in a reasonable manner or in the taxpayers' interest.

This grey area allows the federal government to act in this way, to pass Bill C-78 and to get it hands on the $30 billion or so of federal employee pension fund surplus.

In my opinion, this is a grave injustice because, when it comes down to it, there appears to be absolutely no concern for the interests of those who contributed to this pension fund. Nor does the interest of the public seem necessarily to be served.

Such action is precedent setting. If the federal government helps itself to the surplus in its own employees' pension fund, what is there to prevent any company from helping itself to the surplus in its employees' pension fund, as used to happen? Several examples were given in the House of companies that relied on this argument to dip into the surpluses in their employees' pension funds.

What the federal government is doing with Bill C-78 is unfair. It is setting a poor example for companies and decision makers.

There are several indications that it is acting in bad faith. The President of the Treasury Board has not even bothered to appoint to the board union representatives or employees who have contributed to this pension fund. Rather than opening up the board responsible for managing this pension fund to people who truly represent contributors or to union representatives, the President of the Treasury Board has decided to appoint a group of people. The reason is obvious; these people will defend the interests of the federal government rather than those of actual contributors to the fund.

I am not in the least surprised. What did the federal government do for unemployed workers? Exactly the same thing. Unemployed workers contribute to employment insurance, but the government is making it increasingly difficult for more than about 36% to 39% of them to qualify for benefits. Sixty per cent of workers do not qualify, although they contribute to the employment insurance plan.

This is of course unfair. It is also a misappropriation of funds. The unemployed or the workers who contributed to the employment insurance plan expect the government to use the money to create jobs, particularly since, in the case of employment insurance, the federal government does not contribute one penny to the plan. It is the workers and employers who contribute to that plan. The money belongs to them and it should be managed with their best interests in mind, not those of the federal government.

This government is trying to find oblique ways to get as much money as possible, whether it is fair or not, as in this case. This is unfair, and even immoral and dishonest. The government collects a lot of taxes and has a lot of debts. Taxes have increased considerably since it took office. Since 1993, there have been about 38 increases. The overall tax burden in Canada has gone up about 15%. We are paying something like $30 billion more in taxes than we did in 1993.

Canada is among the countries with the highest tax rates in the G-7, the OECD and the industrialized world. This statement is not from me, but from the OECD, which says that we are one of the most heavily taxed nation in the industrialized world.

Instead of lowering taxes and acting fairly and equitably, the government is using oblique ways to take money out of the pockets of taxpayers, including its own employees. It is grabbing the surplus in that pension fund to use it for its own purposes.

As has been said, this is dishonest. It is a kind of piracy. The Minister of Finance is Captain Morgan, who has decided to break into the treasure chest of his own crew. The Minister of Finance is Captain Hook, pillaging his own crew a second or third time. I am not sure how many times, but this is not the first time that this piracy has taken place. Taking $30 billion in surplus from one's own employees' pension fund is indeed an act of piracy

We in the Bloc Quebecois are proposing some amendments because, basically, there are honest ways of handling a surplus, ways that are not hard to understand. There are many examples, in Quebec and elsewhere, of handling funds in compliance with legislation. The purpose of our amendments is to suggest to the government fair, respectable and honest ways of handling the surplus in the federal employees' pension fund.

There are plenty of examples. The 1985 act suggests all kinds of ways to apply pension benefit standards and ways to see that surpluses are, in some way, returned to those who contributed to them. There is a whole series of measures that could be implemented so as to respect the interests of those who paid into a pension fund.

First of all, the legislation created must not only ensure that the money gets back, one way or the other, to those who contributed it, but also a committee must be struck to represent unionized workers. The President of Treasury Board does not seem to be contemplating this possibility. The government has decided instead to reject outright anyone who could speak for the workers, opting instead for appointing people who will speak for the government. To what end? To get their hands on the surplus in the public servants' pension fund, that $30 billion, and no doubt to use it for other purposes. Once again, this is a roundabout way of taxing people. Unfortunately, this is a most unfair way as well.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-78. I understand this will be my one and only time to speak to it.

We have heard other adjectives to describe the bill, but my favourite is that the legislation came from the south end of a northbound cow. It does absolutely no good for the Canadian people. It does absolutely no good for the regard of parliament.

This is another example of the Liberal government having absolutely no consideration and no respect for the hallowed place we call the House of Commons. All four political parties in opposition represent people in constituencies from coast to coast to coast. Government members disregard us, so that means they disregard our constituents as well and the people in their ridings.

It is a disgrace to listen to them table over 200 pages of legislation which takes a Philadelphia lawyer to figure out and then ram it through. We find out through discussions that when all is said and done not even the auditor general will be able to review the aspects of the bill.

It is an absolute disgrace that current members of the plan who are working pay 7.5% of their salary into the plan. After the $30 billion have been ripped away from their wallets, they will end up paying 8.9%. In essence it is another tax upon Canadians, especially workers in the federal public service.

I read something very interesting yesterday in the National Post . I love this. The government can find more ways to spend money and waste tax dollars than any other government in the history of the House of Commons. The article stated:

Government wants to know what creates unhappy workers. For the first time the federal government is going to survey all its employees across Canada to find out what makes them so frustrated and unhappy on the job.

The government is to spend $1 million to do that. If it wished, it could give me $100,000, which I would spend in my riding much more effectively than it can, and put the other $900,000 toward the debt, reducing taxes or into social programs. I could tell the government for free why people are so unhappy and so angry at the federal government.

First there is the pay equity concern. It totally ignored pay equity. It broke its promise on pay equity. On the table 2 negotiations there was another broken promise by the federal government. It absolutely forced the lowest paid workers in the federal public service back to work against their wishes without even consultation in terms of consideration for fair collective bargaining.

We could talk about our military personnel who are in Kosovo right now working in our peacekeeping efforts, over 60,000 men and women and their families. There is an absolute disregard for their future in terms of their pensions. It will take this money and spend it willy-nilly.

Our RCMP officers are under attack all the time in the press and sometimes by citizens because of some misgivings of a few of them. The RCMP does a fantastic job. To treat its members this way when it comes to their retirement and taking their money away to be spent in other areas is an absolute disgrace.

I could talk about many aspects of the federal public service. I cannot shout it loud enough. It is a disgrace what the federal government is doing. It has total disregard for its workers and retirees who amount to about 1.8 million people.

I find appalling as a new MP that this kind of effort goes on and on and on. The government has done it in many other aspects. There have been over 50 time allocation motions brought forth by the government since 1993. Now it has brought forth a piece of legislation that is 200 pages thick and has cut off debate after four hours. It never took the government four hours to write up this legislation.

My hon. colleague from Winnipeg Centre brought forth recommendations and amendments to the bill. Everyone in the House should heed his warning. If he says they are right then they are absolutely bang on. There is not a more honourable member of the House than our labour critic from Winnipeg Centre. That was a free paid public advertisement for my colleague from Winnipeg Centre.

We can go into the various details and aspects of the bill, but I want to ask the government one question. Why when all is said and done will the government not allow the auditor general to review the legislation in upcoming years? Why is it hiding it? Why is it ramming the bill through so fast?

There have been many speculations on that side that the war in Kosovo is a perfect opportunity to present the legislation. It will not make the press. It will not make the news. It can be kept quiet and hushed. As its own internal reports say, if the government wants to do something bad it should do it fast, do it dirty, do it quick and get it over with; forget consensus from the Canadian people and forget even consulting with them. It will not even allow elected parliamentarians to speak to it.

If that is not the case, why does the government not hold committee hearings across the country to get a fair view of what the people are saying? It will not do that because it is afraid to face the public.

I have said to many of my constituents that the government plans to spend the money some three to six months prior to the next federal election. We will see the Minister of Finance and other cabinet ministers going across the country from coast to coast to coast and asking, for example, what Winnipeg Centre needs. Does it need a new road? Does Halifax need a new building? Do they need this or that? Do they need tax cuts? They will have over $50 billion between the EI surplus and the pension surplus to spend at their will.

Liberals keep saying that it is Canadian taxpayers money. However, no one was fooled when they came down with the recent health care budget of $11.5 billion over five years, after taking away $21 billion. This was money that was taken away from employees and employers through the EI fund. That is where the money came from. It was not new money. Maybe next year it will be a green budget. It could be a tax reduction budget. However, I can assure members the money will be taken away from federal public servants and retirees. That is where the money will come from. It is nothing new.

It is the oldest shell game in the book. It robs Peter to pay Paul. There is nothing new about it. It is the oldest form of government. It forms on fascism and dictatorship.

I have always said that it appears at times we live in a capitulated democracy. As long as Liberal backbenchers do what the cabinet says, they can do whatever they want. I would be ashamed to be a Liberal backbencher. They are like sheep or grazing cattle. They sit back and do whatever cabinet tells them.

I would like to be a fly on the wall when federal public servants call their offices to hear what their explanation is, what they tell these people. We know what we would tell them. We would offer our support and tell them that the government should not take this money.

The government should scrap Bill C-78, just ignore it and leave the money where it is. It should reinvest in public servants, pensioners and widowers. It should improve the benefits. It should give better dental care, health care and eye wear. It should improve pension benefits. That is what the money was there for. It was not meant for the government to take and spend at its pleasure, similar to what it has done with the EI fund.

I could talk all day on this subject. Any time we get to bash the government on something that is right we should take the opportunity to do it, but it is rare that all four political parties on the opposition side agree on something. We have agreed on hepatitis C and on various aspects of EI. Now we totally agree on this one.

If the government wants to lose the next election, this is exactly how it should go about doing it. It takes the money from taxpayers and whenever the election is held it tries to buy votes with their own money. Canadian electors are too smart for that. They will see through this smoke and mirrors in a heartbeat. They will know right away. If the federal government wants to try to win the next election, it should start backtracking on legislation like this and start listening to the opposition.

It is deplorable that the treasury board minister who holds the key to the vault says that it is the taxpayers money and no way in hell are the unions to get that money. I echo the words of my colleague for Winnipeg Centre. It is not union money. The unions are saying that it should go to all federal public servants who have retired and all those who are currently working. That is where the money belongs, not to the treasury board minister. It is a disgrace that he would try to belittle the effort of the union.

Although this is the only time I will speak to the bill publicly in the House, we will be raising the alarm bells loud and clear in our ridings.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

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.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I find it interesting. We are debating a bill of a lot of significance. It has been through a committee process. It has had over one year of negotiations between the unions representing the workers and the government. It is in the House for discussion at report stage where we would generally put forward and discuss amendments. I have listened to the last three speakers from the opposition and I have not heard anyone discuss the actual amendments they want to put forward.

[An hon. member]

That is not true.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

It is true.

Instead they are using the stale argument that somehow the government is ramming something through. One of them made the statement that just because we have a majority we think we can do things around here. Is that not bizarre in a democracy? When we get a majority it means we are responsible to do things. It means we are the government.

Not that it would ever happen, but were the members opposite through some freak of fate on this side of the House with a majority government, would they turn the reins of government over to a minority opposition party, to a party that represents only one region of the country, a party that does not have the interests of the entire nation in its platform? I do not think they would. If we wanted to see things rammed through this place, just let those guys get control of the reins of government for one minute.

What we have here is a public pension fund. It is particularly curious that members of the Reform Party, of all people, would not support using a surplus. How did that surplus build up? It was through contributions over the years guaranteed by the employer, which is the federal government. A surplus of some $30 billion has been identified. Rather than leaving it in a black box or leaving it on the books, the government says it makes sense to reduce the size of the federal government's debt with that money. This is only one program of many.

At least I understand the principles behind the New Democrats who would purport to represent the men and women in the unions in this situation. At least with their principles they say that the money belongs to the workers. I do not agree with them but I understand the philosophy and the principles they stand behind on the issue.

I find such difficulty coming to grips with the other parties, notably the Reform Party. It would purport to want to cut taxes, eliminate the debt, reduce spending in every aspect of the government, except health care of course where it is going to spend more except it is cutting so it will not have more to spend. The math is quite mind boggling. It comes out opposed to reducing the debt.

I am really curious. The member opposite said he would like to find a member in the Liberal backbench who would stand up and vote against the government so that he could respect that member. I would like to find a member over there who could possibly justify the total abdication of Reform's stated policy for fiscal responsibility by suggesting that a $30 billion surplus generated primarily through good management of the pension fund and by the taxpayers should be left alone.

I do not understand it. I am sure if their constituents back home in western Canada had an opportunity to question them on it, the constituents would wonder why Reform members are doing this. It goes contrary to everything they have stood for. Where is the public?

It is interesting. We do not hear about the bill. We do not hear about the fact that there has been over one year of consultation with the public sector unions. There are things we could not agree with.

Should it be such a tremendous surprise that in an employer-employee bargaining relationship there might be things that cannot be resolved at the bargaining table? There might be things we would have to agree to disagree on and move on. That is exactly what has happened here. That process has taken place. Nobody is ramming anything through. If the opposition members were doing their duty as opposition members they would be putting on the floor the real issues of debate in this bill that have been raised in committee.

That is the other point. The bill went to the natural resources committee. A member stood and showed this 200 page bill. If the members opposite are so upset with it, we would expect out of a 200 page bill there might be 50, 60, 100 amendments. We see it all the time. We see it with other bills. Why is it there are a total of 15 amendments that have been put on the floor and most of them are absolutely not the type of amendment that would have a great impact? They are minor amendments.

I do not understand why those members will not discuss the bill. They continually want to talk about the so-called issue of closure which is not what we are doing at all. We are at report stage in the House which is a normal process.

Members opposite think that Canadians are in a uproar over this. A lot of Canadians would love to have a pension both as secure and as generous as this pension is. A lot of my constituents would look at this and ask why should they, taxpayers, leave a $30 billion surplus for somebody to play around with in the future when in fact it should be used to pay down the debt.

One member opposite said that at election time somebody is going to be using this money to build roads or to do favours in someone's riding. We are talking about reducing the national debt.

[An hon. member]

On the backs of the workers.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I say on the backs of the taxpayers because it is the taxpayers who have to carry the burden of that debt.

We should take every opportunity in this place to identify surpluses in each and every plan, in each and every department.

[An hon. member]

It is not your money.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member says it is not my money and he is right. The money belongs to the taxpayers of Canada. I am only one of them but I speak on behalf of others and they want us to pay down the debt, without a doubt.

The Vancouver Sun said “If the money had not gone into the pension plan, it would have been paid as wages to the employees”. That is the position the opposition takes. “It is an argument with merit”, the Vancouver Sun went on to say, “but it runs up against one with even more merit. The employer, the federal government, must make up any shortfall in the plan”—in other words, the taxpayer is the guarantor of the pension plan—“which as a defined benefit plan guarantees the amount of pension received. The employer”—taxpayer—“shoulders the risk and should get any reward”.

That is not a statement by a member of the cabinet. That is not a statement made by a member of the backbench in support of the cabinet. That is a statement right out of the Vancouver Sun . Members opposite who represent ridings in western Canada should listen to that.

The Montreal Gazette said “But fair is fair. If taxpayers were willing to take a risk to keep the plan solvent, they should get their money back if it is no longer required”. The Edmonton Journal said “The reason is simple: that is government money. If it is not needed to provide a fair pension to government employees, a fair pension not a sumptuous one, it is urgently needed for other purposes”. The Toronto Star asked “Whose pension surplus?” Whose surplus is it?. We know whose it is. It is the taxpayers' surplus.

This bill is responsible. Those members are trying to cloud the issue with some nonsensical statements about forcing something through. There has been over one year of consultations and there have been committee hearings. It is now in the House at report stage. In this case, democracy is working well.

[Jean-Guy Chrétien, Bloc, Frontenac—Mégantic, QC]

Madam Speaker, it is of course with pleasure that I rise this noon hour to speak to Bill C-78, the Public Sector Pension Investment Board Act.

I should point out that three categories of public service of Canada employees are affected by this bill. There are the employees of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian armed forces and the enormous public service, spread from one end of the country to the other.

The Bloc Quebecois, naturally, will be opposing Bill C-78, unless the government agrees to the amendments it proposes. As I have few illusions, I can tell you we will be opposing this bill.

First, we in the Bloc have moved amendments to clauses 90, 145 and 192 in order to establish a management board that would report to the House annually. The President of the Treasury Board had established an advisory committee, which, in December 1996, in fact recommended to the President of the Treasury Board the establishment of a management board.

One would not give the job of managing blood to Dracula. One should not give responsibility for the $30 billion to the President of the Treasury Board. This is the worst mistake the Parliament of Canada could make.

The management board could properly manage the accumulated surpluses. It could establish contributions. And the reason there are these huge surpluses is that premiums are too high. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure this out.

The board of directors could also manage the surpluses, and deficits if any. In the event of deficits, premiums would be increased. This is always part of negotiations.

The valiant Liberal member who spoke before me has never belonged to a union. He has never needed to negotiate his salary and working conditions. When the employer says that he has 10% for increases and is going to put them only toward salaries, this will not include holidays, benefits or pension contributions. As a general rule, contributions to the pension fund are on a fifty-fifty basis. The good member opposite should know that.

So, if there are surpluses of $30.1 billion, it is because employees and the government put in too much. However, if the fund is well run, $30.1 billion at 10%—and I think that just about any manager can easily get more than 10% interest on such an imposing amount—would yield annual returns of $3 billion, while the federal government is now paying out $3.1 billion to retirees and surviving spouses. So the fund shrinks by only $100 million a year. As well, the workers in the three groups I mentioned earlier generate $1.8 billion annually, enriching the fund by $1.7 billion each year.

We find two things particularly maddening. The first is that the government is using its majority to gag the opposition, by allowing only four hours of debate on a bill over 200 pages thick, a bill that will allow the President of the Treasury Board to appropriate $30 billion. This is $30,000 million. It is a huge amount of money.

We saw what this government did with the unemployed and the poor. It took the surplus in the employment insurance fund, $21 billion, and of course used some of it to reduce the debt, but also to intrude into provincial jurisdictions, including with the millennium scholarships.

This government is warped and mean, and it is about to plunder the surpluses in its employees pension funds.

These surpluses were largely accumulated with the employees' contributions, as I will illustrate in detail. There is a surplus of $14.9 billion in the public service pension fund; another of $2.4 billion in the RCMP fund—there are not as many participants—and another of $12.9 billion in the Canadian forces pension fund. When we add up these three amounts, we get a total surplus of $30.2 billion.

Ministers in this good Liberal government, with the complicity of its backbenchers, will rise this evening and say “Yes, we agree to gouge public service workers, RCMP employees and Canadian forces members”.

These three groups currently include 275,000 participants. Some have retired, so that makes around 160,000. Then there are 52,000 surviving spouses as well.

With proper management, we could give workers several years' break from contributing. For most of them this would be a considerable break, amounting to over $1,000. The surpluses could finance the funds just from the revenue generated. If properly managed, they could earn well over 10%. This could go beyond the $3.1 billion monthly payments to retirees cost the fund.

Did the big cheese, the President of Treasury Board, the hon. member for Hull—Aylmer, consult the unions? No way. Were there any negotiations with anyone? No way. He has shown no respect for the committee he himself struck, by not paying attention to a single one of its recommendations. This is another disguised theft the Liberal government is preparing to commit.

Yesterday I got an e-mail from Jean Morin, a young man from my riding, from Thetford Mines to be exact. He asked me to speak out in the House against the flaw in the employment insurance system, which counts short weeks, when he works just a few hours in a week, in order to do the calculations for his last 26 weeks. He described this as robbery, as abuse.

These robberies are not being committed against the rich, people like the Minister of Finance, but against the poor, because there are greater numbers of them and they are often defenceless.

I am therefore asking the member across the way to stand up and vote against Bill C-78.

[Rick Casson, Reform, Lethbridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, yesterday we had cowboys on this side of the House and today we have horsemen on that side. I feel quite comfortable on this side with the cowboys.

I will begin by thanking some people from my riding who came to see me last Friday to discuss this bill. They are five retired gentlemen who are involved in this pension fund. They were very concerned about the speed by which this was being put through with very little debate, and that the government was using closure to force it through. They would have liked a little more time for input to their members of parliament and to ask the government to reconsider.

I am also here today representing the people of Lethbridge, home to, among others, hundreds of people who will be affected by this legislation. This legislation, Bill C-78, is nothing but a bald-faced attempt by the Liberal government to continue its tax and spend policies on the backs of Canadian workers and taxpayers.

The act has been controversial from the day it was proposed, and rightfully so. What the government is proposing to do is underhanded and displays a flagrant disregard for the hard-working men and women who have helped the federal government finally land back on its feet after nearly collapsing under the weight of years and years of unethical free spending policies of successive Tory and Liberal governments.

The government has reached new lows using all the procedural tricks in the House to push the bill through the House and through committee, showing a blatant disrespect for the democratic traditions of the House.

The bill will affect the following three pension funds: the public service pension plan; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police plan; and the Canadian Forces plan. The gentlemen who came to see me last Friday are in all three of these plans.

The bill will give the government authority to seize the $30 billion surplus that exists in these plans and establish a public service pension investment board to invest the public sector pension funds in the markets. It will increase the employees' premiums from 30% to 40%. It will sweeten benefits for employees and retirees and will allow the Canada Post Corporation to establish its own pension plan by October 1, 2000.

The government in its usual way is assuring Canadians and pensioners that this is a much better method of safeguarding their money because, after all, if we cannot trust our government who can we trust.

It sounds very sugary, but the Canadian pensioners are not buying this line of government propaganda. Canadians of all political stripes, of all backgrounds and of all ages are banding together to tell the government one thing: “Keep your hands where we can see them and stay away from our money”.

It warms my heart to see Canadians of all kinds, weary of years of Liberal oppression, uniting together to demand an alternative. I want to tell all those opposed to the government's actions that they have friends on the benches of the official opposition.

I want to invite all Canadians who want a national government that will deliver lower taxes, better health care, greater democracy and a stronger federation characterized by a rebalancing of powers and equal treatment under the law to come join myself and my colleagues. Together we will deliver responsible government that cares, a government that listens to the people instead of telling them how it will be.

The first reason I oppose the bill is because it allows the federal government to continue its sleight of hand budgeting shell game. Even the Auditor General of Canada will not sign off on the government's budgets because of its bookkeeping methods.

The three funds contain a surplus of over $30 billion, money that has been contributed to the funds by the workers and by the taxpayers. This massive surplus has accumulated so quickly for several reasons. In order to explain this I will explain the basics of what affects the value of a pension fund.

A pension fund's value turns on three critical factors: interest rates, inflation and salary increases. The key reason for the size of the surplus was that actuaries assumed that wages would grow at 2% above the rate of inflation when in fact they have been frozen for the last six years.

That is another thing. A lot of people who worked for the government and who have retired in the last few years have had their wages frozen for six years. The settlement that they reached just a few weeks ago was not any great shakes after six or seven years of being frozen.

Since salaries were frozen, inflation was no longer a concern. The fund also grew because of the heady interest rates from the 1980s. The 20 year government bonds held by the funds have been providing handsome returns for the last five to ten years of relatively low interest rates.

Undoubtedly this is an enviable position to be in, as $30 billion is a huge amount of money. However, it goes without saying that when there is money involved there are bound to be two sides of the story.

The unions are telling Canadians that this money belongs to the civil servants who contributed to the fund. The government is telling Canadians that this money does not belong to the workers and it does not belong to the taxpayer, that it belongs to the government and the government alone.

The government does not feel that this money belongs to the workers alone because it alone was on the hook when the fund ran a deficit so it feels solely entitled to the surplus.

The gentlemen who came to see me last Friday pointed something out to me, and it is stated in some of their documents, that this indeed is a bit of a red herring that the government is trying to float.

However, what the government so easily forgets is that it does not have any money of its own. This is money that belongs to the taxpayers. It was the taxpayers who had to kick in when the government found itself $13 billion short, so it should be the taxpayers who benefit here.

Taxpayers will not benefit by having this money forfeited to the federal government.

The federal government has proven over and over again that it is not to be trusted with taxpayers' money. For all we know, this money will be used to print more joke books or to give away more free flags. Even today on the front page of the paper there is another story of some $50,000 or more going to a project that did not deserve any government or taxpayers' money.

This surplus should stay right where it is, away from the clutches of the government, right where the taxpayers can see it and readily available should any shortfall occur again.

There is another reason for opposing this bill. Part of the sugar-coating the Liberals are using to slip this bill past the public is that they are sweetening the benefits for employees and retirees. The bill states that survivor benefits are extended to an expanded class of beneficiary. The bill will extend benefits to the survivors of a so-called conjugal relationship, which sounds fine, but it becomes a little tricky when one tries to define what is a relationship of a conjugal nature. Is it a relationship between a man and a woman in the traditional family sense of the word? Does that include common law relationships between a man and woman? Does it include relationships between cohabiting same sex partners? Could it include two roommates? This bill could cover any of these situations, but it does not clearly define what is a conjugal relationship. Even if it did, how would a government prove whether a relationship is conjugal in nature?

Is this government, the party that is most famous for saying that it will stay out of the bedrooms of the nation, now going to hire private investigators to determine whether a relationship is conjugal? This is absolutely absurd. Without defining what conjugal relationships are, Bill C-78 survivor's benefits provisions could be subject to all kinds of litigation from individuals who deem their relationships to be of a conjugal nature.

My time is limited, but I would like to conclude by stressing one last point. Taxpayers are the odd man out in this debate. When these pension funds were created the government structured the funds in such a way that employees paid a combined 7.5% of their wages for their pension plan and the government's Canada pension plan. However, after years of successive CPP increases, with more to come, brought on by years of government mismanagement and neglect, the employee contribution to the pension fund slipped to 30%, with the government picking up the other 70%.

It was because of this mismanagement that taxpayers were forced to kick in $13 billion recently to cover shortfalls. In addition to that $13 billion, the government has taken an additional $10 billion by not making interest payments on the actuarial surplus of the fund. To anybody else this amounts to highway robbery, but to the Liberal finance minister it is called being fiscally prudent.

The government is about 30 years late in breaking the linkage between the CPP and pension plan contributions. It has already cost the taxpayer over $20 billion. It is high time that the taxpayer is shown some respect. It is because of this flagrant disrespect shown to the taxpayer and because of the extraordinary contempt that the government holds for the traditions of democracy that the Reform Party cannot support this bill.

As we work through this we must remember that this bill has been rammed through the committee with very little chance for comment and it is being rammed through the House.

The hon. member from Mississauga earlier said that there were only 15 amendments. I have a list showing 51 amendments on a bill that has 200 clauses. That represents one out of four clauses which opposition parties felt needed to be amended. As well, it is a tragedy that the government has brought in closure over 50 times.

[Leon Benoit, Reform, Lakeland, AB]

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.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Beauport—Montmorency—Orléans, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on behalf of my party to Bill C-78, the Public Sector Investment Board Act.

This bill, as my colleagues before me have rightly pointed out, amends the Public Service Superannuation Act, the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Pension Continuation Act and other related acts.

I would first off remind this House and those watching that this bill was introduced by the President of the Treasury Board, who has a second job, as do all the ministers of the House. He is the member for Hull—Aylmer.

Why do I refer to the fact that he is the member for Hull—Aylmer? Because often, when there are bills of the closure or bludgeon type, such as the law ordering blue collar workers back to work—in which my colleague, the member for Trois—Rivières did such a fantastic job managing the debate— people forget that the President of the Treasury Board, member for Hull—Aylmer, represents a strong proportion of public servants living in the Hull-Aylmer area.

I would like the people, the workers and the public servants living in Hull-Aylmer to remember two years hence that this minister most of the time treats the federal public service with disdain. What distress me is that he takes them for granted. He says “We can pass laws of all kinds, we can hit them on the head with a stick, and absolutely nothing will change. They will vote for us”.

I do hope that people in the riding of Hull—Aylmer will remember this come the next general election, in two years. The last election was held two years ago, on June 2. I hope people in the riding of Hull—Aylmer will remember. We in the greater Quebec City region have clearly demonstrated how a President of the Treasury Board who shows contempt for people can be ousted.

We will recall the Mulroney years, before this government took office. Back then, Gilles Loiselle, the member for Québec, was the President of the Treasury Board. In the election held on October 25, 1993, Gilles Loiselle was fired by the voters in the riding of Québec. He has since been replaced with my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois, who is now representing the riding of Québec. So, I do hope that people in the riding of Hull—Aylmer will teach the President of the Treasury Board—who is taking their vote for granted—the lesson he deserves.

This bill confirms once again this government's approach to managing the finances of the country. The government tends to come barging into exclusive provincial jurisdictions and interfere in provincial jurisdictions in general. There are so many examples of such intrusions by the Liberal government that I simply cannot list them all in the 10 minutes that I have.

The government interferes in provincial jurisdictions and uses the surpluses to finance such intrusions. Think about the millennium scholarship program. The government does not recognize Quebec's jurisdiction over education and the Quebec education minister, Mr. Legault, has to negotiate with Mr. Monty, a financier and a non-elected administrator. This shows once again how arrogant the Liberal government is.

We could also mention the accumulated surplus in the unemployment insurance fund, because as far as I am concerned, this is not employment insurance, but unemployment insurance. Those on UI can be sure they will remain on UI; this program does not help the unemployed find a job. We should therefore continue to refer to this program as the unemployment insurance program, because that is what it is about.

The government appropriated the surplus in the unemployment insurance fund and used it to eliminate its operating deficit.

The Minister of Finance, who is a shipowner by trade, is boasting about this. Anyone who still has doubts about the minister's involvement in the shipping industry should be reminded that, whenever a motion is put forward in connection with that industry, the Minister of Finance leaves the House. He does not take part in the debate and does not vote. The Minister of Finance is still very much involved in the shipping industry.

Let us not forget that the Minister of Finance—

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member knows very well that we are not to mention which members are or are not present for votes. If he wants to start that, we will list all those in the Bloc Quebecois who were not here for the voting yesterday.

[The Deputy Speaker]

It is easy to determine who is present in the House for a vote, given that the list is always published. It is certainly contrary to the Standing Orders to reflect on a vote in the House. I am sure that the hon. member for Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans does not wish to act contrary to the Standing Orders.

He may continue, without referring to a vote held in the House.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Beauport—Montmorency—Orléans, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in any event, I think you have seen that the member for Bourassa has been consistent.

The member for Bourassa is a master at this. He was in the lobby and came back for a few seconds. From his post in the lobby he decided to come back and give the Bloc Quebecois member a blast.

We are on to the member for Bourassa—