Yes, we do, especially that member.
It seems that the best way to get a yuk out of the voters is to run down the job we hold. Anyone who does that does themselves a disservice and a dishonour and in fact does their constituents a disservice and a dishonour because they are not being truthful about what we can accomplish.
Let me just shift gears a little. In addition to the reform of parliament, one of the issues we deal with is respect of parliamentarians. This is addressed in the throne speech. It occurred to me this morning that we have a new game in the House of Commons. It is called “Who wants to be a millionaire?” In the game, an initial question is asked. In the television show it is called the fastest finger question; whoever can answer the question the fastest gets to be the candidate.
Here is the question: who wants to get back into the pension plan? Guess who won? The member for Edmonton North had the fastest finger and managed to turn an $89,000 reinvestment into an asset that has been estimated to be worth more than $1 million. She indeed has become the latest millionaire. It might be more. I have a problem with that. If I was one of her constituents my question would be “Is that your final answer?” I would want to know why she railed against that as being somehow unfair, as being overly rich.
Not only did the member for Edmonton North do it but her entire party platform was built once again on the denigration of MPs and their role and the fact that they tried to remember the pigs, as my hon. friend mentioned, the snorting and the buttons. It was absolutely disgraceful behaviour. We have grown to become accustomed to it. They wear sombreros and drape old jalopy cars in Canadian flags. They use anything it takes to get a little attention. How to get on the nightly news: bring a pig into the House of Commons and snort a little.
One of the members from that caucus failed to respond to a question he was asked by one of my colleagues when he gave a speech about morality. The member stood in his place all high and mighty. This reminds me of the sixties when we had the moral rearmament army driving around the country trying to sell its vision of Christianity.
I heard another member say that he was disgusted that Christianity was attacked. Well I am a Christian and I was not attacked. Why is that? It is simple: I do not put my religion in my platform. I do not say to people, as the Leader of the Opposition does, “here is what I believe in: I do not believe in a woman's right to choose. I believe in three strikes for young offenders then they are out and the key is thrown away. I also believe in capital punishment. If you vote for me these are the things I believe in but I will not implement any of them”. What a remarkable campaign that would be.
Canadians are used to people standing up and saying what they believe in and what they will do if they vote for them. This is a pretty normal, reasonable position for a politician to take. People want to know our beliefs so they can either believe us or not or so they can agree with us or not. To say that one believes in all of this and yet not implement it, Canadians obviously do not buy that.
I said we are judged by the lowest common denominator in this place. Here is another example of why Canadians get upset at politicians. When the Leader of the Opposition was a member of the Alberta legislature, he openly and publicly issued a slanderous letter criticizing a lawyer in the local community and he was sued. He then settled for over $800,000. Guess what he did? He jumped on his horse and rode east to Ottawa claiming to be the new sheriff in town and left the taxpayers of Alberta stuck with a bill of $800,000. That is the kind of denigration that causes people to lose faith in parliamentarians and in the system.
It is not an empty House of Commons. Canadians are smart enough to know that MPs are working hard and not just sitting here wasting their time. They are working hard on behalf of taxpayers. They know that jumping back into a pension plan, that leaving taxpayers with an $800,000 bill, while at the same time claiming to be the great protector of the taxpayer dollar, is frankly not being honest with taxpayers. It is my view that gentleman and that lady will pay the price. When asked “is that your final answer” people will say our final answer is “you're cooked”.