Debates of June 13th, 2000

Parliament Of Canada Act

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

I must interrupt the hon. member once more. I just want to make sure that she understands this is questions and comments. If she wants to comment, she can do so as long as she wants.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

On September 12, 1995, an MP from B.C. who at that time was a Reformer said that MPs were still at the trough. Others did not think it was being at the trough. They thought they owed it to their offspring.

I have been hurt by the statements and comments made in the House about members of parliament. I cannot believe what some members said about those of us who have given over 25 years of our lives to make for a better quality of life for our people. I would never say that about any member of the House. I have never ever said it. I have never used that kind of language. I do not intend to use it tonight. I will quote what members of the official opposition have said about everybody else in the House, but I have never referred to any of them in that way. Nor will I do it tonight.

The member for Fraser Valley stated that all Reform Party members would opt out of the pension plan because they stand on principle and do not swim in gravy. I have never swam in gravy. I am pleased that I am known in my riding as someone of principle.

Last week I was asked to go to a Baptist convention in Moncton. I was the guest speaker for a pro-life meeting. Representatives from all across Canada were there. They did not ask others to do it. I was humbled and proud to be there. I am a person of principle. I take great offence at the statements that have been made by members of the official opposition about me, about others in my party and about others who sit on the government side. We are people of principle. Most of us would not even think of being here if it were not that we wanted to do something that was best for the people of Canada.

I think about why members would come here if they did not want to do something that was better for their people. Why would they want to be here and do and say the things they do? If members of the official opposition wish to come into the pension plan it is up to them. Fine and dandy. We have heard all kinds of rumours in the House about the large numbers in that party who want to have a pension. That is fine, but they should not say derogatory things about other people.

[Charlie Penson, Reform, Peace River, AB]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We are in questions and comments. I think the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands should be allowed time to respond to this comment. I hope you would take that into consideration.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

Yes, indeed. I will ask the hon. member for Saint John to allow a couple of minutes for the member to respond.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Unlike members of the official opposition I will say yes because I do not have a problem listening to other people. I will listen for a couple of minutes.

[Lee Morrison, Reform, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, I guess there was a question in there somewhere. I was touched to hear that the hon. member was hurt by the tone of debate in the last parliament, as the practitioner of some of the most vicious debate that I have ever heard in this place. It brings to mind the old proverb of the pot calling the kettle black. This is one for the books.

The hon. member mentioned that she will only get a pension of $17,000. I do not know what she did wrong or why she will be punished. Anyone else with her number of years of service would be getting $19,096. Perhaps she was bad and they took away some of her money.

[Jay Hill, Reform, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Madam Speaker, hon. members down the way and members of the Progressive Conservative Party seem to be suggesting somehow what Canadian Alliance members ran on in the last election as Reformers. I have here a copy of our quick facts policy handbook for Reform Party candidates from the 1997 election which says that a Reform government would abolish the MP pension plan and replace it with pensions comparable to those in the private sector. That is our position.

I note that the Tories had a position. They promised a privatized plan like those of other Canadians. Yet they were in government from 1984 all the way to 1993. They had a massive majority. They could have changed the plan but they did not. Would my hon. colleague comment on that?

[Lee Morrison, Reform, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, my comment would be that between 1984 and 1993 the Tories could have done a lot of things that they did not do. This is just a very small example. They could have balanced the budget for openers, but all they did was whine about it after they finally got booted out.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Madam Speaker, as usual the comments of members of the official opposition do not surprise me, but I will inform them of what it was like in my riding when we were in government.

When we were in government we had 4,000 men working at our shipyard, contributing to our economy and educating their young people. It was a beautiful time for our city. We also had a sugar refinery which dates back to 1903 with over 300 men working. It is closing at the end of this month. We had VIA Canada with over 300 men working. None of them had to go to the United States to work. They had their dignity. I have to say it was about the best time I had ever seen in Saint John, New Brunswick. I have nothing negative to say about our people when they were in power. They did an excellent job.

I read the comments that have been made. People will never forget the comments made in the House of Commons about everyone who sits in the House and whether or not they will take a pension. In the next election the comments that were made here will certainly be repeated. There is no question about that, but they will be repeated by other parties. They will remind the people of the statements that have been made.

This is not what one does. One does not rise in the House of Commons to say the derogatory things that were said about all other members. I look at our members who have contributed so much to try to stabilize the foundation of our country for our young people. Yet Reformers say we should never have a pension at age 55.

We lost one member of the House before she became 55 years of age. All kinds of nasty things can be said but the people do not appreciate that. The people do not want that and the people will never forgive members of the official opposition for the things they have said.

[Bill Casey, Progressive Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Madam Speaker, I was one of the members who ran in 1993 and was defeated in 1993. We have heard a lot about what happened at that time. It was a split vote from the right. The vote I achieved in 1988 which put me in office was split in 1993. A big argument that was used to take the votes away from me was that the Reformers would not allow the pension plan to stay in place, that they would not participate in the pension plan.

I was hammered with it day and night in that election campaign. Many Reform members gained their seats based on that argument. That was the sole, main or prime argument they used against members of parliament like me who had served one term.

I remember it just like it was yesterday. They accused me of coming back only for the pension. I did not run in the first place for the pension. I did not run in the second place for the pension. It is part of being a member of parliament. They hammered away at that and I lost my seat because the vote was split.

I wonder if the hon. member could comment on another issue in that campaign, that members of parliament should be subject to recall if they do not honour their promises. Reform members at that time said they were not interested in participating in the pension and that they would do away with the pension. I wonder if the member for Saint John would comment.

Considering that the former Reform Party members who are now Canadian Alliance members say that members of parliament should be subject to recall, does the hon. member for Saint John think, if Reform members accept the pension and vote to go into the pension again, they should be subject to recall? That is the first part of my question.

The second part of my question is: Does the member think that the leadership candidates for the Canadian Alliance Party should state their positions? I propose that each candidate should state his position on the pension plan. They should indicate whether or not they support the pension plan and whether or not they support members of the Canadian Alliance Party opting back into the plan and buying back their former service. I wonder what her thoughts would be.

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Madam Speaker, I say to my hon. colleague that when it comes to the maritime provinces and Newfoundland we have absolutely nothing to worry about in the next election because the people will not vote for the official opposition. The member does not even have to worry about that. The opposition got only 2% of the vote in Newfoundland.

Should there be a recall? Certainly there should be a recall if any one of them joins in the pension plan. We should be watching that on both sides of the House. We can look at the comments they made. On November 2, 1999, they said that 34 Reform MPs, including all second term Reformers from Alberta, fought for, won and exercised the right to opt out of the MPs pension plan. However, reflecting on the difficulty of going without a pension does not mean any of these principled MPs have changed their minds. In any event they could not legally opt back into the plan even if they wanted to at that time.

They can opt into the plan now. We certainly will be watching to see who opts in to the plan in view of the statements that have been made in the House about everyone else who has been part of the pension plan.

When I ran in 1993 I did not even know there was a pension. I never got a pension after 18 years at the local level. I never knew there was a pension plan up here. I did not run for a pension. I would not have dreamed that there was a pension. My hon. colleague asked me about the candidates who are running to be the leader of the Canadian Alliance. There is one and that is the person who was the leader of the Reform Party who stated just this week, and I believe it is in Quorum , that if he becomes the leader none of them will be able to take the MPs pension because he will not allow it. It will be interesting to see what happens.

[Leon Benoit, Reform, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, tonight we have heard members of the Conservative Party talk about the two times the Reform Party reversed its position on issues. One was to do with Stornoway and the other one, according to them, dealt with taking a car for the leader of the party. They have dwelt on that and they have brought that up again and again yet in 1984 their party ran on balancing the budget and lowering taxes. I remember it well because I voted for them in 1984. They reversed their position on those issues.

Would the member lay it out before the people of Canada as to how important she sees the issues are of taking a car and living in Stornoway as compared to the issues that her party reversed their position on? That was the issue of balancing the budget. When they left they had a $42 billion deficit that year. They ran on reducing the debt, but they more than tripled the debt in their nine years in office. They ran on lowering taxes but they increased taxes more than 100 times in the nine years they were in office.

I would like the member to clearly lay out for the Canadian public how she sees the importance of the Stornoway and the car issues compared to the importance of the issues they reversed their positions on, which was the issue of running a $42 billion deficit, the issue of tripling the debt during their nine years in power, and the issue of raising taxes which they did over 100 times. Would she very clearly lay out how she feels the importance of these issues relate?

[Elsie Wayne, Progressive Conservative, Saint John, NB]

Madam Speaker, I know that the hon. member from the Canadian Alliance would like to change the subject to something dealing with the economy instead of dealing with whether or not they are going to take a pension.

I want the member to know that when Brian Mulroney became the Prime Minister there was a $39 billion debt that was left to him by Pierre Elliot Trudeau. A $39 billion debt was left to the PC Party by Pierre Elliot Trudeau and no one even talks about it.

Back in the maritimes there is no prayer for the Canadian Alliance because our people understand the different regions of Canada and that different needs in different regions must be addressed. I look at the flip-flops that have come from members of the official opposition, and they even flip-flop on their own name. They flip-flop on everything. They flipped out of the pension plan. Now they would like to flip-flop back into the pension plan. They flipped out from the Reform Party name and went to another name and I believe they said it was CCRAP. We did not say it; they said it. Now they are down to Canadian Alliance. They are flip-flopping all over the place. The stability is gone. People have seen it and we know that.

When it comes to the pension plan, certainly as our House leader stated tonight, we feel they should all have had a pension. Certainly they should have been in the pension plan. There is no question about it. There is no reason in the world for them not to be in it. We could change it so that no one gets a pension until a certain age. It was 60 for me. Now it is down to 55 and the majority of the people do not get one when they leave here.

There have been major changes that have come about. In the class of 1988 the immediate pension was about $37,000. Now the immediate pension is around $18,000 or $19,000. That is only since the class of 1993. There have been major changes and people in all communities across the nation respect that.

[Dale Johnston, Reform, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to split my time with my colleague from Prince Albert.

I cannot say that this is a great pleasure to speak on this bill because it is not. Back in 1992 I had just finished serving six years on council and I did not get a pension after I left.

I found out from talking to many people, as a person at the municipal level does, that there was great discomfort in the country about the fact that there had been successive deficits run for years and years. We had managed to amass a $600 billion in debt, yet the members of parliament had rewarded themselves by giving themselves a pension plan that was not available to anyone else. It was a plan that was topped up by their employer six to one. For every dollar put in by the member, the taxpayers of Canada, the poor beleaguered people who had already been taxed into submission and into $600 billion worth of debt, had to fund the members of parliament pension plan six to one.

It was not my idea to bring this to the Parliament of Canada. It was my constituents' idea. When I sought this nomination, I thought that one of the things we would have to put a stop to was the runaway spending and the unnecessary taxation of people.

I will never forget the day when Don Mazankowski was the newly minted finance minister. I had a lot of respect for that man and thought maybe he was someone who would give us a budget that was somewhere near balanced. My hopes were dashed. I think his deficit that year was a meagre $22 billion. At that point I said I had to get out of municipal politics and into federal politics because it was absolutely horrendous; I had children whom I hoped soon would have children and I was very concerned about the state of the nation.

What options do ordinary Canadians who pay taxes to this place have for retirement benefits? If they are lucky and have any money left after tax, they can put a few dollars into an RRSP to pay taxes on at later date. They do not have a pension plan. I suggest that a lot of the people who came to this place from some other business did not have a pension plan. Now that they are here they say they have to have a pension plan, that someone else is paying for it, so why not.

There is a lot of talk about the changes which have taken place to this very plan. It is extremely significant that there have been three bills in seven years to deal with it. If it had not been for pressure put on by the former Reform Party, those changes very likely would never have taken place.

When we came here we were the Reform Party. We made some changes to the pension plan by putting the pressure on the government. That is how that happened.

Let us see what people have available to them. They have the famed, or is it fabled, CPP. They have the Canada pension plan and for the low, low price of 10% of what they earn, they can enrol in it. The premium will soon be 10%. By 2003 that plan to which self-employed Canadians, and lots and lots of the people in my constituency are self-employed, will pay $3,270 per year for an annual pension of $8,800. That is a whopping $733 a month, and certainly they will have money left over from that to pay taxes, to make sure that members of parliament retire in the manner befitting members of parliament. Would that be reasonable? I think not.

Today it takes a record 20% of Canadians' average earnings just to pay their taxes. In the small amount of time we have been here we have made changes to this plan. Taxpayers were putting in $6 for every $1 a member put in. It was six to one. It has been reduced to $3.61 for every $1. That is still pretty rich and it is still too rich for me.

I concur with my colleagues that the only way to handle this is to put it to an independent arm's length group who will come in, assess the job and the fact that we have to spend time away from our families.

I have heard people down at the other end say, “We spend time away from our families. We have to get on an airplane”. Where did they think MPs went to work? Did they not know they had to come to Ottawa to go to work? Did they not know that the House sits 135 days a year? Was this some surprise, that after election day they said, “Oh my God, I did not realize I had to go to Ottawa”. Of course they have to go to Ottawa.

There are people out there who are struggling. They do not know where their next paycheque is coming from and we are worried about a pension plan.

I submit that anybody who has the wherewithal to get themselves elected to this place should have some wherewithal to make a living once they leave here. If they have not, how in the world did they ever get here? I think every one of us has that wherewithal.

There has been a lot of talk that we co-operated with the government to bring in the bill. Yes, we did. We did that so we would get an opportunity to talk to the bill. If we had not co-operated with the House leader, he very likely would have brought it in anyway. He very likely would have put closure on every aspect of the bill. He very likely would have got his bill and we would not have had any say. We would have looked totally complicit in the whole affair.

I do not want to eat into my colleague's time because I know that he has things he wants to get on the agenda, too.

Members of parliament have families and they do have to prepare for their golden years. However, I would like to see a pension plan that is fair, one that is reasonable, one that is somewhere near the ones that my neighbours have. My neighbours manage to get along just fine and they do not have a cheque arriving from the Government of Canada every month.

At no time have I ever said that members of parliament do not deserve a pension plan. What they do deserve is a pension where they can hold their head up high and say that this pension is somewhere in the neighbourhood of what their neighbours, their friends and the people who fund this place have available to them.

This bill, in my opinion, and the whole approach to the pension issue, is just one more reason that I believe this government should be sent packing. We have heard people down at the other end say that there will be nobody who will vote for the Alliance Party. There will be people who vote for the Canadian Alliance. I want to put them on notice that an election is in the offing. I am sure the Prime Minister is a man of his word. He said that we can rely on having an election within a year's time. I would like to put the party down at the end of the hall on notice that a lot of them are not going to be here next time around.

[Lee Morrison, Reform, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for the member for Wetaskiwin. I have a bit of a theory about the Liberal House leader out on a fishing expedition and casting flies. Lo and behold, a fly fell in front of the hon. member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough and he leapt on it like a big trout. He and his colleagues have been doing the work in this place of the government.

As members of the House may have noticed, the government members have had nothing to say all night. They have been sitting there smiling like Buddha while that group over there does their dirty work for them. I think this a little delicious.

I would like to ask the member for Wetaskiwin if he believes that the other party, the fifth party, licking the hands of the hon. House leader for the government, is the shape of things to come?

[Dale Johnston, Reform, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Madam Speaker, if ever there was a loaded or leading question that would probably be it.

If my hon. colleague from Cypress Hills—Grasslands truly expects me to answer that, we will have to have a beer and talk that one over in private. I am not prepared to make statements like that in the House of Commons.

The question from my colleague does give me an opportunity to let him know that I do recall that when we first arrived here after the fall election of 1993, my good friend from Cypress Hills—Grasslands, my colleague from Prince George—Peace River and myself went over to pay and benefits. We said that we wanted to get out of the pension plan. The people in pay and benefits, after they had quit laughing and had picked themselves up off the floor, said that nobody gets out of this pension plan. They said that there was no way for anyone to get out of the pension plan. They told us that we were in it and that was all there was to it.

There has been a lot of talk tonight about all the Canadian Alliance members being in the pension plan. I would just like to point out to you, Madam Speaker, and I know that you have a grasp on this, no one is vested in this plan until they have served six years.

At this point, I do not think it is entirely accurate to say that the Canadian Alliance people are in the pension plan. They are making contributions to a pension plan that will absolutely ruin their RRSP eligibility which will be all but taken up by the contributions to this registered plan. Therefore, to say that all the Canadian Alliance members are in the plan is absolutely inaccurate. There will be no more Canadian Alliance members in this plan than there are at the moment. Members will only be in once they have served their six years.

[Derrek Konrad, Reform, Prince Albert, SK]

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?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

The hon. member is asking for a little silence as he makes his speech. I suppose that it can be very disturbing, so I would ask hon. members to please respect that.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[An hon. member]

Put a sock in it.

[Derrek Konrad, Reform, Prince Albert, SK]

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.

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

Madam Speaker, I have a simple question relating to the reform platform. There are some aspects of it that I actually agree with from time to time, especially on tax policy and the need to lower taxes and pay down the debt. Those are the kinds of things where a broader Conservative consensus can be built some time in the future.

One aspect that I am curious about is the issue of recall. How many signatures are required under the reform formula for recall? If we could obtain those signatures on this particular issue, would reform respect that petition?

[Derrek Konrad, Reform, Prince Albert, SK]

Madam Speaker, as the hon. member is well aware, there is no reform policy any more because we are now members of the Canadian Alliance.

I did make a commitment to my voters that if a majority of them got together and recalled in a petition, which has not happened by the way, then I would honour it. I think that is the best answer I can give the hon. member. Until a party becomes government it cannot implement recall. I am quite sure that if a recall policy had been in effect in the last years of the Mulroney government, we would not have had to put up with so many years of mismanagement by the Tory Party.

I am glad to hear that the Conservatives agree with our taxation policies. That is important but it is only half the game. There is parliamentary reform, which they are not interested in, and a whole list of things that need to be dealt with.

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

Madam Speaker, I just want to explore this issue a little further. We do have some concurrence on how we grow an economy by paying down debt and lowering taxes, so we do agree on that side of the equation. On the parliamentary reform aspect of things, he said I did not have any interest. I am trying to get more interested as we speak.

In that regard, the question is quite simple. How many signatures under the Reform formula that exists, which now represents individuals from the Canadian Alliance, are required to have a recall on any particular issue? How many signatures are required to do that? That is my question. It is a direct question. What is the number of signatures required for a recall under the platform on which the hon. member ran?