I see I have members' attention in any event. Members should feel free to vote for that amendment and we hope they will because we think it would make the package more acceptable to the Canadian public.
As has been mentioned already, we do not like what I would call the excessive retroactivity of the bill, the fact that it goes all the way back to January 1. Maybe I am a bit naive. I assumed we would start getting paid the new rate after we passed the bill. I could see how April 1 could be justified in terms of the fiscal year, but going back to January 1 we find somewhat unacceptable.
Another thing a lot of us do not like, and I hope it is not just within the New Democratic caucus, is that we find ourselves uncomfortable, as do a lot of Canadians, with some of the arguments offered in favour of the bill, for example, that we have to pay a certain amount of money to get good people into parliament.
There are a lot of good people out there who have run for parliament over the years, who are in this parliament now and who will be in future parliaments and who will be attracted to political life and attracted to parliament because of things that they believe, because of changes that they want to see made. They will not be reckoning on the salary.
If we ever arrive at the day when people are reckoning on the salary as to whether or not they should go into politics, then I think we will have arrived at a particularly sad day. This is an argument that comes more out of the corporate world than anything else, where there may be a lot of people who do have to take a so-called cut in salary in order to become a member of parliament, but for a great many Canadians this is not so and there are a great many Canadians out there that we would do well to attract to political life.
We can attract them by making sure that what happens in this place is more meaningful than it is today. The greatest reason people would have for not going into politics today is to ask themselves the question, what kind of influence can I have as a member of parliament? That is the question that we should be asking and answering instead of the compensation one.
Finally, with respect to something that has been raised by the Alliance, and as I say we will support their motion, I find that the opting in clause in the bill is particularly offensive because it really is a form of intimidation. I think the Alliance House leader used that word. It is a form of intimidation on the part of the Prime Minister. It is basically trying to put us in a position where politically we will be vulnerable if we both express our opinion on what we think is proper and vote accordingly. We are to be put in the position where we will be called hypocrites, we will be called inconsistent et cetera.
We in the NDP say we will not be intimidated on the principle of free speech in the House of Commons. We will say what we think about this particular bill, we will vote as we please and we will vote against this package, and we will abide by a principle that we have always upheld in the past and uphold this day, and that is that all members of parliament should be paid the same, that there should not be any differential rate, that there should not be a two tier system for MPs any more than there should be in any other sector.
We say to the Prime Minister that if he was really interested, as I thought he was for a while, in uplifting and enriching or enhancing the image of parliamentarians in Canadian society, he should have had the courage of his own convictions instead of introducing an element into this legislation that can only create a situation in which people will come to think less of parliamentarians rather than more.
I say to the member from the Bloc who was concerned about demagoguery and so on that I think this so far has been handled with a minimum of demagoguery. We do not intend to be demagogic about it and I have not heard anyone else being that way yet. I hope we can all keep our tone down on this. I hope we can deal with this civilly.
Finally I just want to say that we will vote against the bill, unless of course our amendment is accepted, but we also as a caucus have taken a decision, because we believe in equal pay for work of equal value, that we will be opting in. We will not suffer a situation in which some members of parliament are paid less than other members of parliament.
I encourage members to vote for the Alliance amendment because in effect it would teach the government a lesson for having put this particular element into the bill. I do not expect it to pass.
I would also encourage members to consider our amendment because we think it might make this package, which has some very good elements within it, more acceptable in the eyes of many Canadians.