Mr. Speaker, I will only take a couple of minutes. I think we have had all the fun we can probably stand for one night. I should like to correct some misconceptions that have been said tonight.
The first one was corrected by my colleagues. I am referring to the allegation by the fifth party, the Conservative Party, that Reform MPs and now Canadian Alliance MPs have always been against an MP pension plan. That is just simply not the case. What we have been against is a pension plan that is unfair and is out of line with what Canadians expect from us.
The second one is that the bill is about the Canadian Alliance forcing the government into allowing Canadian Alliance members back into the pension plan. That is what one of the Conservative Party members said. That is so absurd we should think about it again. He said that the Canadian Alliance House leader somehow put pressure on the government House leader to bring in a pension bill to allow members of the Canadian Alliance party to get back into the pension.
If we are that powerful as the official opposition, imagine what we will do when we are in government a year from now. I would like to know why the Conservative members, the few who are left, are not rushing to join us given that kind of power. That was an interesting comment by the member from the Conservative Party.
The third thing is members of the Conservative Party have said that some kind of dealing went on which allowed the bill to go ahead with unanimous consent and that there would not be a debate or a vote.
Any member of the House can deny unanimous consent. There are still about 17 members in the Conservative Party. Where were they to deny unanimous consent? If they were doing their jobs, they would have denied unanimous consent. They went along with it too, because all that unanimous consent did was to allow the legislation to come to the House two days earlier than normal.
With full debate, we could debate it for the next 10 days if we chose to. That is what is allowed here. For the Conservative Party members to suggest that there was conniving which took place to allow this to go ahead and that they were tricked, I do not know what they are saying really. The fact is that any member of the Conservative Party could have denied unanimous consent to allow the bill to go ahead two days earlier than normal.
When the Canadian Alliance forms the government, we will change this plan. We will change it based on the recommendations of an independent commission. We supported the Blais commission recommendations. An independent commission is needed to set the pay and benefits of members of parliament. That is what will happen when we form the government, I believe a year from now. Because that has not been allowed to happen in this situation, I will vote against the bill at third reading, as I did at second reading.
There has been a lot said about the bill. I think we have had full debate on it. There is still a lot I could say about it but I think it has been said. I will leave my comments at that.
I agree with others who have said that our constituents will judge each one of us on this issue. I welcome that.