Thank you, Madam Speaker, for asking them, as my colleague said, to put a sock in it. It is hard enough to speak here when these people are talking over what one is trying to say.
The Trudeau era is the primary image I have of what happens when the political elite takes control of its own wages and benefits, and passes legislation that is not to the benefit of every other person in the country. That is why this needs to be taken out of the hands of the political elite and given to an independent commission to make those kinds of recommendations.
I am sure that in those days maybe even the Trudeau Liberals could have been re-elected—if they had not done something like that—if they had put it in the hands of somebody else outside the system. No, they made sure that their pocketbooks were good and thick at the expense of Canadian taxpayers who were held back at a time when they were losing their homes, farms, businesses and everything else as a result of inflation.
I want to talk a little about the pain the PC Party down at the end of the building here seems to be feeling as a result of the MP pension issue. Members of that party think they were defeated because of the MP pension plan. They think that was the major issue in the last election.
Let me tell the House that the last Conservative to be elected in my riding was John Diefenbaker. No other Conservative has been elected since. We have had Liberals but they were defeated because they did not happen to know there was a place called western Canada. It was just where another automatic vote came from. It was good-bye to Gordon Kirkby who was one of the primary architects of Bill C-68, the firearms legislation. Prior to that it was a NDP member. It has been back and forth as they searched for an alternative who would make a difference.
As for Mr. Diefenbaker, most of his supporters, workers and campaigners are now members of the Canadian Alliance. They came through the reform party. They have had it with the Progressive Conservatives.
Those are the many reasons why the antipathy toward the Conservative Party runs so deep, so longstanding and is so visceral. It is based on a number of factors.
The national energy program instituted by the Liberals was supposed to be done away with immediately when Mulroney and the rest of the Conservatives were elected. They left it in place for years and took billions more out of western Canada. That is one good reason.
The aircraft maintenance contract was taken from Winnipeg by force and transferred to Bombardier in Quebec by an act of cabinet after it was fairly awarded by a competitive contract.
They wonder why they do not elect anybody in western Canada? Let them think about it: the ongoing deficits, the spiralling debt, increasing taxation.
In Saskatchewan there was a bush league boondoggle called gigatext where they thought they could translate French into English and English into French just by pushing a button. The only button that was pushed was the voters of Saskatchewan who awarded the Progressive Conservative Party roughly 7% in the last election. I do not think it got much more in the previous election. It had nothing to do with MP pensions. It had to do with the things that I have just mentioned.
Added to that were ongoing, well documented excesses and scandals. There is a book written about it, On The Take that most of us have read if we are from Saskatchewan. In case the Progressive Conservatives are under any misapprehensions, they should read the text of what I have said tomorrow and they will understand why they have no voice, no members and no representation in western Canada.
Getting away from the historical aspects, we had an opportunity to do it right by adopting the recommendations of the Blais Commission report last time. That was rejected out of hand by the government, which is a total waste of more tax dollars. We could have converted the non-taxable allowance to taxable and put the pension on a commercial basis, but we lost the opportunity. This is just another example of a process that is flawed when it is in the hands of MPs. It needs to be taken out.
The Canadian Alliance is governed by its members meeting in biennial assemblies and they set the policy. We are just asked to implement policy. I think it is rather a good idea. They get to set the stage.
Some parties have a policy similar to ours but they have zero chance of bringing it into effect. What is the purpose of having a policy if we cannot bring it into effect? For instance, the NDP wants Canadians to elect 20 of them so they can be the conscience of parliament. Big deal. When have the Liberals or the Conservatives ever listened to their conscience? Why would anybody elect a party like that or any of its members? For goodness sakes, that is just too much to hope for.
I abstained from the previous vote to send the bill to second reading. I will be opposing the bill in the upcoming vote.