Yes, blinking. I just called them blinking Liberals, that is all I said. There is nothing bad about that. It is as bad as I can get under the rules of the House.
We have all of those members standing up on command today, except for one, saying, “I do not want to disobey my party orders. I'll just vote for it”.
I have come to the conclusion that these members do that because their own pensions depend on this. Let us stop and think about this. If a member wants to be eligible for that gold-plated MP pension plan, which past Conservative, Liberal, NDP and Bloc parties set up, voted for and accepted, the member must serve for six years. If members disobey party orders in their first term, the Prime Minister, in exercising discipline, could simply say that he will not sign their nomination forms. This basically means that they would not get re-elected. They could also put their own MP pension plan at risk if they disobey the party orders. Consequently, because we have a majority government, we have absolutely no way of stopping legislation which is clearly bad.
In this particular bill we have motions brought forward in part of the MP pension plan and other plans that say that the government will just simply take the money back.
I know why the Liberals want time allocation. I know why they want to jam this through by the end of the week. I know why they do not want anyone to talk about it too much. It is because of all the seniors who are affected, all the civil servants who are affected and all the taxpayers who are affected by this. None of them will have an opportunity to actually organize and get their opposition to the bill heard here before it is a fait accompli. That is absolutely shameful.
I am not surprised that the Liberals are doing it. I remember a bank robbery in Edmonton not long ago. They had a getaway car because when people take money that does not belong to them, they do not want to hang around too long. Obviously these guys want to grab the money and run, otherwise someone might catch on to it. It is absolutely ridiculous what the Liberals are doing. If I were a Liberal I would be hanging my head in shame at this stage.
We are debating the motions in Group No. 2. A lot of people do not realize that the motions in Group No. 2 are meant to sustain the current definition of family and marriage as it has long been held through centuries.
The Liberal government has presented a bill which takes away $30 billion from the people to whom it belongs and is also sneaking a revision into the bill of the definition of spouse. Instead of calling it a surviving spouse, the government has subtly changed it to survivor. The survivor of course is whoever one chooses, but the bill attempts to jam through that partners in a conjugal relationship can also be survivors.
How the dickens are the Liberals going to find out who is in a conjugal relationship? I will give members an example. It just so happens that my son, when he was at university for three years, shared housing costs with another young lad. They cared for each other and shared expenses, but I absolutely and positively assure members that there was no conjugal relationship.
What if one of them had died during the time when they were sharing this apartment? There could have been a benefit involved, but not in this particular case because this involves pensions. However, now that I think about it, I guess my son did have some credits under the Canada pension which this could apply to. He could say that they were in a conjugal relationship. How would anyone be able to prove otherwise? Will the Liberals stand on command next week if a motion is put to the House to install video cameras in everyone's bedroom so we can see if they are conjugating. This is so ridiculous and offensive. Furthermore, it is in opposition to what almost every MP in the House voted against.
In the six years since we have been here we have had a number of occasions when these exact questions on same sex benefits have been asked. I remember way back when one of the Bloc members had such a motion, 10 Liberals stood in favour of it while everyone else was either against it or absent. Only 10 Liberals voted for it. Why are they now for it? It is because their pension plan depends on them voting for this one. They are told how to vote and they simply comply.