Madam Speaker, I would like to talk a little bit about an image that comes to mind when we get to the debate about pay, pensions and things like that.
I will go back to the Trudeau years. I did not pay too much attention to politics in those days, but we were into hyperinflation in some of those years. All of a sudden, Trudeau, his cabinet and the Liberal Party slapped handcuffs on the wage aspirations of the average Canadian worker of 5% and 6%. Can anybody in the House forget where they were the night that happened, when Trudeau sat there in his expensive suit with a flower in his lapel and locked us into 5% and 6% wage increases over the next couple of years? Before he did that, he made big wage increases to two classes of people: members of parliament and senators, and federal judges. The political and judicial elite of Canada were exempt from the laws they made for every other person in the country.
Madam Speaker, could there be a little less cross-talk in the House so I can speak and be heard?