Madam Speaker, I hate to say it but I think I am getting under the hon. member's skin. I certainly would not want to do that. This is the famous old bait and switch tactic. He wants to get us off the topic. The truth is that they are attempting to spin their story and they are not succeeding. The truth is they conspired with the government House leader to sneak the bill into the House of Commons in the dying days of this session. That is what they attempted to do and they will not get away with it.
The reason for that is pretty simple. Now that they are going into an election they realize they have been here long enough to be pensionable. Most of them have been here at least six or seven, going on eight years. They realize they need a little safety net for themselves. They are saying they may not run as Reformers so they do not really care.
All they want is to get locked into a pension in some fashion even though they railed against it for the two terms they have been here. When they leave, when they wave goodbye as one of them is doing now, they will have the golden parachute, the thing they railed against.
That is what is getting under their skin. They have truly flip-flopped on this issue as they have on every other issue including changing the name of the party. They went from being a party that would bring in the west. Its rallying cry was that it would let the west into this thing called Confederation because the west wanted in.
Now that they are courting with Bay Street, the big blue machine in Ontario and Tom Long. They risk losing their party to the very people they railed against. They are going from a western based party to a Bay Street party, from a populous party to a corporate board party.
In the meantime they will do whatever they have to do to land on their feet back home. If it means a safety net that is fine. They might have railed against it, but the fact is that is what they want and that is what they will get. They conspired with the government to move this through the House very quietly, very silently. Unfortunately some of us stood up on our hind legs and railed against exactly that type of manoeuvring.