Debates of May 13th, 1999

Division No. 425

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, you have said that the purpose of this House is to debate. How then can it be that you prevent my colleague from taking a minute of silence, because you claim it prevents debate, yet when the government introduces a gag motion, which deprives us of our right—

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order, please. The hon. member knows very well that the Speaker is not here to answer questions. I am here to rule on points of order.

I have already given my ruling and I ask the hon. member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles to continue his speech without raising any further points of order.

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

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

[The Deputy Speaker]

On the same point of order?

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

Yes. I want to know what Standing Order you based your decision on.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I have made my ruling on this and that is that.

[Gar Knutson, Liberal, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, you have the right to rule us out of order, but I would like to ask for unanimous consent to grant the request of the hon. member. I would like you to ask a second time for unanimous consent.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is it agreed that we have one minute of silence during the hon. member's speech?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[An hon. member]

No.

[Gilles-A. Perron, Bloc, Saint-Eustache—Sainte-Thérèse, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry for all the kerfuffle I have caused. I thought it was an effective way to get a message across and especially to give everyone an opportunity to reflect.

It was never my intention to treat this House as a circus or a place of ridicule. I have too much respect for the people here to do that.

Let us turn now to Bill C-78. I would like to provide a bit of background. The President of the Treasury Board created an advisory committee on the Public Service Superannuation Act to look at pensions within the public service.

This committee carried on consultations for four years. It comprised members of the government, public servants and representatives of employee and pensioner associations. Everyone contributed effectively to this committee. The President of the Treasury Board recognized the committee's effectiveness. We will recall that the president said in February 1998, “that the government had accepted a certain number of the committee's recommendations”. These words speak reams.

Why then, a few years later, did this government make an about face? It totally changed its position. It did so simply because the President of the Treasury Board sat down at the table in cabinet, and the finance minister, also called the ships minister, saw an opportunity to get hold of some money so he could boast about his government's good management.

The minister finds it tempting to take from a fund of nearly $30.2 billion the government does not contribute to anymore. This fund is made up of the public service, RCMP and Canadian forces pension funds, which have built up a surplus of $30 billion.

This legislation will allow the government, and particularly the Minister of Finance, to take this $30 billion and say “Look how good I am. I have achieved a zero deficit. Look how great it is”. The government has made a habit of doing that. Remember the siphoning of money from the employment insurance fund. Remember the transfer cuts imposed on the provinces by the Minister of Finance and this government.

Remember that, in the health sector alone, the government has cut over $20 billion in the transfers to the provinces. Now, a few years later, it is boasting and saying “We will reinvest $11.5 billion of your money, the money that we siphoned off. But we will be the ones investing your money”. The government siphoned off $20 billion and is now reinvesting $11 billion.

This is outrageous because, without telling anyone, this government decided to change the formula that determines equalization payments. The new formula will use a per capita basis, which, again, will create problems for the Quebec government.

Under the new formula, Quebec will get less than 8% of these $11.5 billion, while Ontario's share will be very close to 47%. Talk about fairness.

Let us now take a look at what Bill C-78 does.

In Bill C-78, the government has had another brilliant idea, which is to form a sort of management committee to administer the $30 billion surplus in the fund. The committee will be appointed by the President of the Treasury Board, and the unions and retired employees will have no say. This committee will be packed with friends of the government, those who contribute to its campaign fund, and those to whom it owes favours.

This is oddly reminiscent of the other agencies this government has had the bad habit of establishing, such as ADM, the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, the Canadian Wheat Board, and Nav Canada, among others. When there is a problem with these agencies and we ask a question in the House, what do the members opposite say? They say that they have created an agency that is responsible for its actions and that the directors are old enough to manage the taxpayers' money. This money is being managed by people who are not accountable. It is a disgrace.

In conclusion, I would like to remind the House that, this morning, we have witnessed something very sad, as we do here all too frequently. Once again, I am bitterly disappointed at what is happening to democracy in this country.

[John Herron, Progressive Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is with a degree of sadness that I rise to speak to the amendments in Group No. 3, Motions Nos. 16, 39 and 47 at report stage of Bill C-78.

The reason I am sad is that individuals who are at home watching this series of speeches will be thinking that there is serious ongoing parliamentary debate to ensure that the right thing is being done with respect to this piece of legislation, in particular with these Group No. 3 amendments. I am sad to say that again the government has resorted to closure. Again the democratically elected individuals in the House are not able to properly debate this very important issue we have at hand.

We are primarily talking about the pensions of our valued civil servants whether they be in the RCMP or other areas. The average pension of these individuals is in the neighbourhood of $9,000. The government under the guise of this legislation will say that it is managing its resources in a more prudent fashion. We know that the government may be looking at potentially garnishing the accumulated surplus in these funds.

I will revert to Group No. 3 as it is imperative that we refer to the amendments. Motions Nos. 16, 39 and 47 in Group No. 3 would give the power to set pension contributions to parliament rather than to the President of the Treasury Board. This is a small step toward restoring part of the role parliamentarians should play in Canada, but it does not address many of the more serious deficiencies in Bill C-78.

For example, this bill does not make a strong enough link between the actuary of the fund, that is, the CPP actuary, and the board that will oversee the investments of the fund. In fact, nowhere in Bill C-78 is it specified when and how often the actuary will meet with or make a report on the fund to the board or to the government.

The President of Treasury Board will have incredible powers under this legislation with the ultimate power to set contributions and benefit levels. Imagine the following situation.

The government of the day decides it will have an election in a year or two. It wants to offer the voters some election goodies in the platform. Essentially the government wants to buy the votes of Canadians. A nice quiet and discreet way of stockpiling a little dough for just this occasion would be to set a pension contribution rate slightly higher than the rate really needs to be. In a year or two the government would have hundreds of millions of dollars to throw around. The best part is that nobody would have seen the government building up this nice little slush fund.

Bill C-78 will allow the government to withdraw the current surplus of over $28 billion from the fund over a period of up to 15 years. Any future surplus can also be withdrawn from the fund, or the government may reduce employee or employer contributions. What are the chances the Liberals will do the right thing with these surpluses?

Since 1993 the Liberal government has continuously taken more from Canadians while giving less in return. Tax revenues are at a record high and government services are at a record low. From 1993 to 1998 the government took in an extra $35 billion in tax revenues but at the same time cut $20 billion from health care and education transfers, the priorities of Canadians.

There is no mechanism in Bill C-78 for parliament to hold the government accountable for these surplus withdrawals. Let us look at what is currently happening with the EI fund. The government takes in over $7 billion annually within the EI fund than the program actually consumes on an annual basis. With this track record, I am fearful for the Canadian taxpayer that Bill C-78 will permit the government to do this with another fund.

Currently pension and CPP contributions are linked and capped at 7.5% of salary for public servants, the RCMP and the Canadian forces. Bill C-78 will de-link these contributions and allow for CPP contributions to increase until 2003 while pension contributions will remain frozen at 4%.

After 2003, pension contributions are expected to increase so the employees' contributions rise to 40% of total contributions. This means that public servants, the RCMP and Canadian forces personnel could see pension and CPP contributions rise steadily over the next five to 10 years. This could seriously erode the progress the Canadian forces made in their quality of life salary increases announced recently, and I will commend the government for taking that step in the right direction.

Bill C-78 establishes a public service pension fund investment board similar to the Canada pension plan investment board. The fund will now invest in the stock and bond markets rather than the Government of Canada bonds it now invests in. In fact, maximizing returns is written into Bill C-78 which is a good idea. This will help the pension fund achieve higher returns and allow for lower contributions in the future.

The pension fund however will be subject to the current rules regarding foreign assets, that is, the fund can only invest up to 20% of the assets in foreign property. This will have two major impacts for employees and pensioners.

Their savings will not grow as fast as they otherwise could if there were less restrictive rules on foreign content. When this fund has assets in the $100 billion to $120 billion range, it could end up costing nearly $250 million in forgone wealth accumulation because historically Canadian markets have not performed as well as the American and European markets. Even most of Asia has done better than Canada despite the recent crashes and meltdowns.

The second impact of the 20% foreign content rule relates to the ultimate size of this fund. In not too many years the fund will account for a substantial portion of the stock markets in Canada. How will it be able to buy and sell companies without disrupting the markets? Managers of mutual funds in the $1 billion to $2 billion range say that they have problems buying or selling some stocks because their actions cause significant variations in the price of a stock. Imagine the effects of a fund worth over $100 billion.

Another problem not addressed in this legislation is that of the RCMP. The RCMP's pension funds will be invested in this fund as well, but the Liberals as far as I can tell have not thought about some of the problems that might arise from this fact.

What would happen if the RCMP began investigating a company that was part of its pension fund? If the officers had to choose between shutting down the firm due to illegal activities and turning a blind eye because $5 billion or $10 billion of their retirement money was at stake, what would they do?

I can think of the example of YBM Magnex. It was found to be linked to the Russian Mafia. It was delisted from the stock exchange and by some mutual companies, and individual investors lost millions of dollars in their portfolios.

The current Liberal government seems to have an insatiable appetite for money, no matter where the money comes from, taxpayers or government employees. Bill C-78 will concentrate the power of cabinet ministers and further erode the role of parliamentarians. If the government truly wanted to maximize returns for retirees, it would increase the allowable limit on foreign content in the bill and all other pension and RRSP legislation.

Given the Liberal track record to date of record levels of tax revenue, government expenditures being consistently higher than estimated, and erosion of government services, Canadians will surely pay more and get less.

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-78. I commend the Bloc Party for attempting to have moment of silence for the death of democracy this morning. I thought it was a very good tribute. I stand and applaud the Bloc for that. Although I may not agree with the Bloc in much of its politics, the fact is that it is right on with this one. It is the death of democracy in the House of Commons.

Over 50 time allocation or closure motions have been brought forth by the government since 1993. Bill C-78 is over 200 pages thick with legislation, some of which contains serious public policy. It affects over 1.8 million Canadians currently working for the federal service and those who are retired. It also affects every Canadian from coast to coast to coast.

I ask again why the government is ramming the legislation through. The only answer is that it has an awful lot to hide and it just cannot get its hands on that money fast enough. It just has to have it.

I can assure the House of the difference between an NDPer and a Liberal. We will walk down the street and see a quarter on the ground. An NDPer will pick up that quarter and give it to a street person. A Liberal will pick up that quarter, pocket it and not share it with anyone. That is the problem. That is the difference between the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party. It is as clear as night.

Reform and Conservative members are rightfully upset by the bill. We must understand that all the Liberals are doing is reforming Tory policies. If Canadians want true democracy in the country, they should elect a full house of New Democrats from coast to coast to coast, provincially and federally. Then we would have some solid democracy.

Bill C-78 affects every Canadian. I do not think the Liberals have thought this one through. It will come back to haunt them in spades. They are ramming it through when the newspapers are full of items like Kosovo and other issues. They want it through the House by early June. Then they will go away and say “look what we have done, folks”.

Here is my prediction of what will happen six months prior to the next federal election. The Right Hon. Prime Minister will step down. His finance minister may win the nomination to be the Liberal leader. He will then come to my riding, or a Reform riding, a Conservative riding, the riding of my colleague from Winnipeg Centre or the riding of my colleague from Halifax West, with $30 billion from the EI fund. Probably the surplus in the pension fund will be $35 billion at that point.

He will have about $65 billion in his pocket and he will ask everyone what they need. If they need a road, it will be done. If they need another prison, it will be done. If they need tax breaks, it will be done. Those things will be done on the backs of the workers, just as the Liberals did with the EI surplus. They took $11.5 billion over five years and dedicated it to health care. That was the money of employers and employees. Now they will do the same with the surplus in the Canada pension fund. This money does not belong to them. It belongs to the workers who worked hard for it.

One of the reasons we have such a wonderful country is our public service. Our military men and women throughout the world work hard on behalf of Canada. What has been their answer to them for their efforts over the years? More taxes for one thing, absolutely. Now they are grabbing their pensions and next year or the year after they will have to pay more into their pension plans.

I may stand corrected on this one point, but this does not affect MPs, members of parliament. I am not sure on that. I will have to check into it. If it does not, obviously it is another scandal we will have to go after the Liberals for.

On behalf of all PSAC workers in Nova Scotia and across the country, on behalf of the RCMP, and on behalf of the military personnel at Shearwater base in my riding, whom my wonderful colleague from Halifax West, our defence critic, knows very well, what the government is doing to their pension plans is an outrage.

What an absolute disgrace that Liberals treat our military personnel, civilian workers and public service workers in that fashion. They are treating them with absolutely no regard at all. A classic example was the recent pay equity decision. They will fight pay equity tooth and nail. In most cases they are offending the women of the country by not honouring their commitment to pay equity.

I remind the House that it was the Liberals who said in opposition that when they formed the government they would honour the commitment to pay equity. They went back on their word. I cannot say they l-i-e-d, but that is exactly what they did. They went back on their word.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The hon. member cannot bring in through the back door what the hon. member cannot bring in the front door. We ask the hon. member for Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore to retract the word l-i-e-d.

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

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely retract it and apologize to you and the House for spelling out that word.

The facts are still the facts. This is precisely what the Liberals are doing. They say one thing in opposition and now that they are in government they completely reverse their proposal. No wonder the Reform, the Bloc, the Conservatives and the New Democrats are so angry with them. No wonder even some of its backbenchers are so angry with the government.

This will come back to haunt the Liberals big time. Mark my words. They have an opportunity right now to retract Bill C-78 and take it back to the drawing board. The next time, if they want to do anything with it, they should talk to the people most affected by it: public service workers, the RCMP, the military and the people who work in the House of Commons. They are the ones to whom the Liberals should be talking.

It goes on and on and on. I can give many examples of how deplorable government policies are toward working people. Bill C-78 is just a classic example.

Following on the heels is Bill C-32, the CEPA amendments. Mark my words, the Liberals will invoke closure on that one as well. There were over 800 amendments to that bill. Bill C-78 should have many more amendments to it but they were not allowed. I have always said that the Liberals believe in a capitulated democracy: one can say and do whatever one wants as long as one does what they tell one to do.

I will not take up much more time of the House. My voice is starting to wane after wailing about the government for over two years. I ask the government to retract Bill C-78 and never to invoke closure again on something as important to the Canadian people.

[Gerry Ritz, Reform, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to reiterate some of the points my colleague from Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore made so well in the last few minutes.

I thank the Liberals for giving me the opportunity to say a few words today about Bill C-78. Without their dedication to limiting democracy we might even have a few more words to say. This is about 50-plus times we have seen closure in the House. It makes us wonder about the capitulated democracy which was talked about earlier.

This morning we saw a bit of tinkering with some very good amendments that needed to come forward. We heard quotes from the member for Waterloo—Wellington and his quote was—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

It must be made very clear that the government did not tinker with the amendments that came forward. I made it very clear when I made the ruling this morning that it was an error made by the Chair. It had nothing to do with the government.

[Gerry Ritz, Reform, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for clarifying that.

The member for Waterloo—Wellington talked about some of the amendments which redefine spouse, survivor and so on. He indicated that parliament was merely keeping pace with court actions. That was quite a statement. On this side of the House we would call that judicial activism. The government of the day abrogated its responsibilities on politically correct or sensitive issues to the unelected courts. It is back door democracy.

I will refer to some comments made on Tuesday by the member for Mississauga West. At one point he said the $30 billion pension surplus was generated primarily through good management of the pension fund. That is a real oxymoron when it comes to government generated returns on anything.

I wonder how he would define the $13 billion taxpayers had to put into the fund at one point to make up for shortfalls, or the fact that the surplus was the result of a disastrous economic philosophy in the 1980s to fight inflation with high interest rates and wage freezes.

Does he also think it is good management, especially in light of future possibilities of shortfalls or setbacks in financial markets, for his government not only to arbitrarily seize a $30 billion paper surplus but also to have used accounting tricks to date to drain off $10 billion before now?

He claimed yesterday that his government should identify surpluses in each and every plan, in each and every department, supposedly to pay down the debt. We know it will not go there.

There may be merit in doing that, but what is the government doing instead? I direct the member to the budget figures which show a $4 billion overdraft on the spending projections and a debt frozen at $580 billion into the foreseeable future. If the shuffling contingent of Liberal backbenchers from Ontario had any clout or economic sense, they could convince their future leader to freeze spending and actually reduce the debt rather than let it sit there like a leech sucking the lifeblood out of the Canadian taxpayer. It amounts to $42 billion a year in interest payments and it is not going down.

Bill C-78 deals with a very contentious issue for which governments across the country have never shown much enthusiasm. Who owns any pension surplus? Since employers and employees contribute to the original funds it would seem fair to divide it between the two parties somehow. An alternative could be to reduce the contributions and/or raise the benefits, or perhaps arrange for some kind of one time payout to both side, something that is equitable. The federal government says no. It has its hands on the purse strings and claims the spoils for its own purposes, whatever they might be.

Members opposite have tried to question our integrity on this side for not wanting to back the government on this matter, but let us look at what it is really doing. It froze wages for six years so that anybody still in a particular job classification has not had a raise for a while. That depresses the liability for their ultimate pension level.

In 1996 we recognized a growing surplus sitting on the government books, certainly not sitting in a vault somewhere. There is no cash pool somewhere as some would have us believe. The wizards at finance waved their magic pencils and turned red ink to black. Some $10 billion in liability disappeared without debate or vote, or any consultation with the people involved.

Members opposite will rightly give us credit for being in favour of reducing government liabilities, but the way to do it is not in the backroom, without consultation and, worst of all, in a one shot deal which does not get to the root of what is wrong with government, excessive spending.

We see the finance minister raid the so-called EI fund. We see him lay claim to the public pension surplus. We see him prebook future expenses to hide taxpayer surpluses today. That is not the way to balance the books. That is not fair because he will run out of unguarded accounts to claim. Inevitably there will be dips and bumps in the road that will cause our economic performance to fluctuate in the days ahead.

What if the interest rates rise as they seem poised to do in the States? The burden represented by that festering debt will grow in leaps and bounds just when the North American economy slows down, as it surely will. At that point will the Liberals be prepared to give up their support for porno films and kite flying projects?

Even with Bill C-78 on the order paper the finance department projections leave the $580 billion debt untouched. In other words, it has not committed to subtracting this $30 billion windfall. Left as it is, interest payments drain over $40 billion from the government's books every year before it has paid for a single mile of road or another hospital bed that is so badly needed. That is not prudent or responsible. The fundamentals are not right.

Members opposite will claim that the pension surplus will be devoted to debt reduction but we have no assurance of that. We suspect the $30 billion will be used to finance pre-election goodies and canoe museums. The Liberals have to admit their track record would suggest that this is a more likely outcome than debt reduction or that much cried about tax relief.

The opposition parties have put forward over 50 amendments to bring accountability and openness to the process of reforming the public service pension system. Let us be clear on this. The pension system was out of date and the unions and the pensioner associations agreed that something needed to be done. I am sure they can see that it was time public service employees accepted their share in CPP premium increases and re-balanced that proportion between the public pension and the government pension premiums. I understand that the employee representatives also agreed on the mandate for the new pension investment board.

The question before us is not is it good or bad to have a new investment regime for public service pensions or is it good or bad that it should be done by an arm's length investment board. The question before us is simple. Has the government been open and up front about how it has managed the previous system? I do not think so. Has it developed the best possible new system and is it entitled to walk away with $30 billion to squander on programs that it likes? I do not think so and the majority of Canadians agree.

The Reform Party, particularly through the strenuous efforts of the member for St. Albert, has tried to wrestle this massive bill into some sort of responsible direction. Our amendments would bring accountability to the process.

For example, we recommend that the board of directors of the new investment board maintain contact with the actuaries of each fund under their management. It sounds like a simple business procedure. We want appointments to the board as well as those to the investment committees to be tabled in the House. We want to delete the clauses which allow the government to make off with the surplus in the first place. We also want a separate act to set the contribution rate for the RCMP superannuation fund, not have it determined behind closed doors.

We also have a problem with the vague and unnecessary interference with personal relationships. A number of amendments in Group No. 2 refer to the problems that will arise as this government fumbles its way toward accommodating special interest lobbies.

The Liberals have attempted to socially engineer the public service pension system by introducing the vacuous term, survivor, 249 times in this bill. They also introduced the qualification, relationship of a conjugal nature, to modestly describe same sex partnerships. Who will keep score? How will we stay on top of that? Or at least that is what we are left to assume. The terminology is vague and will no doubt open up a whole new can of worms when some other groups decide they have been left out.

It has been estimated that the cost of recognizing same sex partners in Bill C-78 will be quite small, but this is not the issue. If the government wants back into the bedrooms of the nation that it supposedly vacated 20 years ago under Prime Minister Trudeau, then it should bring the issue to the floor of this House, not the courts. It should offer genuine and open debate and create legislation that addresses what needs addressing, not drop confusing hints and ambiguous references in this omnibus legislation.

The Reform Party recommends the surplus be left where it is to smooth the transition to a new and better administered pension system than we presently have. We are in favour of reduced government liabilities and better returns for our Canadian pensioners, but we cannot support slippery, open-ended and underhanded methods of financing re-election campaigns that we see in this bill.

As my colleague from Medicine Hat has said in the past on the EI grab, why does the finance minister not just leave the money where it is, put his hands where we can see them and back away slowly?

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

Mr. Speaker, what has been happening here these past few days is utterly deplorable. I said these past few days, but I could have said these past few months or these past few years, because the opposition has been subjected to closure more than 50 times. We are no longer in a parliament where we can speak freely. We cannot even express ourselves through silence, because of an earlier ruling by the Chair.

When we want to talk, we are denied the right to do so. We are not allowed not to talk, and we are denied the right to talk long enough to make a thorough examination of the bills before us. What has been happening here these past few months and these past few years—in fact, since the Liberals took office—is absolutely appalling.

When the Liberal Party was in opposition, it said exactly the same thing we are saying today. Does this mean that, once in office, a party tends to forget everything it said previously? There is no chance the Bloc Quebecois will ever be in office in Ottawa. That is why we can debate issues very openly and we can say there is a limit to how far one can go in showing so little respect for democracy.

I also want to mention the tyranny that exists in committees where, once again, government members form the majority. We are constantly being told that there will be a time limit, that the committee will take only so much time to do such and such a thing. The minister will appear, but will not be able to testify for very long. This is what I call the tyranny of the majority. It is sad that there are not more government members here today, because I would like them to hear what I have to say.

I also thought the government House leader was extremely arrogant this morning, when he moved time allocation. He was smiling and laughing because he had just gagged the opposition so that we would not have all the time required to speak out on a bill of such fundamental importance as this one.

There are not two kinds of MPs. There ought to be just one kind. We have all been elected by our constituents, but some assume additional rights over the others. I am referring again to what I call the tyranny of the majority.

I would like to pause a moment now, if I may. I do not want to use unparliamentary language, and what has taken place here is too irritating. If I may, I will put my papers into order a bit and start up again in a minute. I find what has taken place here deplorable and I would not like to get carried away. If I may, I will take a minute to calm down.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

Hon. members are well aware that we do not have to put up with the state our colleague is in. One is not allowed to do indirectly what one cannot do directly. When someone's papers are mixed up, and it takes a minute to get them straight, and that same person was the one who asked just now for a minute of silence, we are nobody's fools, at least not on this side of the House.

I would like us to continue, because I want to hear the speeches.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

From time to time I am sure there are many members in the House and certainly many Canadians who would think that perhaps more silence from this chamber would be a good thing. The hon. member for Saint-Jean has 10 minutes of debate. Provided the debate goes forward, I think we should allow the hon. member for Saint-Jean to organize his thoughts as he sees fit.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your solicitude. Unlike the member for Bourassa, you can understand.

If a person does not want to start using unparliamentary language, he is sometimes better off taking a break. I have calmed down now. I thank you for your decision.

Today, we have two motions before us. There is Motion No. 16 calling on parliament to pass an act of parliament if it wishes to change the contribution rate to the employee pension fund.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

When is he going to stop talking?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am having trouble concentrating because of the member for Bourassa's continual interruptions. Could you caution him so that I might continue?

That is one other way the tyranny of the majority is exercised in this House. When opposition members are speaking, we are continually being interrupted.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. They are preventing me from speaking. I too can speak while he does. I am simply following his logic—