Mr. Speaker, I sat in the House most of the day and listened to the debate on Bill C-28. I particularly enjoyed the speech made by the hon. member for Souris—Moose Mountain.
I have empathy with him because I can suggest to the hon. member for Souris—Moose Mountain that when I put my name forward and was elected on November 27 for the second time never was this an election issue. I remember debating quite frequently with candidates from the Liberal side of the House. Never did they ever put forward the suggestion that one of the first orders of business on coming to the House would be to look at members' pay packets and to put forward some compensation changes.
We talked about health care and agriculture. In my case we talked about defence and the possibility of the PPCLI coming to Shilo. We talked about all major issues that were necessary during an election campaign but not once did the topic of members' compensation packages come up.
I mention that because I appreciate what the hon. member for Souris—Moose Mountain is saying and what the government is doing, particularly the Prime Minister. He should take full responsibility because he is putting the hon. member and other hon. members not only on this side of the House but on that side of the House in a very difficult position.
Our party has said, and I will get into my own personal circumstance later, that it was unfair to put members of parliament in the position of voting on their own compensation packages for the same reasons the member just articulated. We said that if we were going to put together a reasonable pay package or compensation package for members of parliament, it should be done for the next parliament.
Let us have the studies, let us have the suggestions as to what a reasonable amount of money is for members of parliament and put that forward in the next parliament, so that when we sit on the podium and debate the issues we know that everyone is equal, we know that the next decision has already been made and that is what one is trying to attain.
When I ran for parliament I knew what the compensation was and I was happy with it. By the way, surprisingly enough, I am still happy with that compensation.
I said the party position was that we should do it for the next parliament. I had a previous life and was a politician in that life. I lived by that rule. Unfortunately or fortunately, whichever way one may look at it, it did not quite work out that way.
On principle I also said not to give me a raise in my capacity as mayor, but if people wanted to attract someone to replace me in the next election, then put that forward in the next campaign and in the next election. My council of the day decided that that was not going to happen and it was passed by my council on my behalf. Yes, I took it because I felt that it was something the council wished to put into legislation. It was accepted.
Honestly, in principle, I still believe it should be for the next parliament. Then the hon. member from Souris—Moose Mountain would not be put in this position, would not have to vote no against it, would not have to say he was not going to take it and become in my mind a lesser member of parliament than members on the backbench of the Liberals. There will be a two tier system and we will talk about it later. However, first we should do is make the decision now for the next parliament, not for this parliament.
We also have in this piece of legislation a suggestion that committee chairs should be compensated for their jobs. I have thought about this quite often actually, because there are different levels of compensation for different levels of responsibility. I might even accept that but for the fact that those chairs are appointed by the Prime Minister. There is no open and honest election. In fact we tried that. I know the Alliance Party suggested that there should be at the very least a secret ballot, and there should be.
I have a lot of good faith with committee work. I think committees could work extremely well and probably better than they are now if there were a less partisan member sitting as the chair of a committee. Let us have secret ballots. Let us have, goodness gracious, the possibility of a member of the opposition sitting as the chair, as opposed to the chair having to be a member of the government. That is shocking.
Would it not be wonderful if we could have a member of the opposition as the chair of a committee? Then the committee could operate as a true committee, not as one that is being tailored either by the minister's hand or by the Prime Minister's hand. Again, I and my party do not accept the fact that there should be additional compensation for the chair unless it is an open, honest and true election for the chair of a particular committee.
I think it was mentioned earlier in debate, but we also believe there should not be any retroactivity. We were elected on November 27.