Mr. Speaker, I am sure there are more people across the country watching the debate and listening to the speakers than we have had in a long time.
At the outset I want to make it abundantly clear to everyone in the House that I do not want, in my actions, to hurt any one individual within my party or within the government party. It is not in my nature to be spiteful or hateful. Whatever an hon. member chooses to do with his or her vote on the bill is all right with me. However I do not want anyone coming back and saying that what he or she selected to do hurt them. Let us make it clear that this is a free vote on the bill.
I was really disturbed after reading the press reports on the bill. The press has made fun of this institution and of members of parliament and, in doing so, have made fun of me to the point of being incompetent, not being able to accomplish anything and not doing anything. That does not serve the House at all and it does not serve the country one little bit.
Let me relate what amounts to a day's work for me. My office door in Ottawa opens at 7.30 every morning and the average time that office door closes is 9.30 at night. The press does not report on that. The press does not report that in the last two weeks I attended four different committee meetings. The press does not report that I leave here on a Friday night and finally get home in the wee hours of Saturday morning to wake up at 6 a.m. so I can get to a special event that has been organized. The press does not report on that.
The comments I have read about people in the House who were elected just like I was are irresponsible. Yes, there are people here not doing their jobs. There are always people in the House not doing their jobs but they are few. We should not all be branded by the press as being totally incompetent.
When I was elected to this institution in 1997 I was asked to serve my constituents. I was born only 40 miles from the town in which I now live. I know most of the people in my constituency by their first names. Four years later, last November, those same people, I like to think because of the service I provided to them, increased my vote by 23%. They did that because of the work we have to do to be professional members of parliament.
It bothers me to be intimidated by those saying if we do not vote for this we are not as good as those who would vote for it. I come from an area where I have spent all but 12 to 13 years of my professional career. I watched communities across my rural area go from booming institutions downhill to a point where I can take a given area in a 50 mile radius where there is not one new housing start. I have watched paved highways being turned into gravel roads. I have watched farming people trucking their grain 80 miles in one direction.
We have before us a bill. I am very proud to say that the most important people in my career, aside from my wife, are my constituents. I listen to them everyday through phone calls, letters, e-mails and so on.
There are three main reasons I will be voting the way I will on the bill. Three young couples live within the same block: Deb and Rob, Marlo and Audrey, Carl and Penny. They each have two children with both mom and dad working. They are finding it tough to make ends meet. Can one imagine my voting for a raise up to $130,000, going back to talk to them and their kids, and their having the same respect for me as they did previously? I do not believe so.
Can one imagine my going to hundreds of poor people who have come to my office to show after they have completed their income tax and paid their rent how much money they have left to buy their food, fuel and medicine? I do not believe so.
I know some of colleagues will be able take this pay raise to their constituencies and very little will be said. I know people who have said that I would crazy not to take it because people will forget about it in six months. I am reminded of the statement from Shakespeare:
This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
When I go out to the agricultural community I know very well that the average net income of farmers in my constituency last year was $7,500. That means a lot of them went into the hole. I know that some of them have had negative income for three years in a row and do not see any future. Currently there is a drought over half of my constituency. No, I could not go home to face the people who elected me. For that reason I cannot support the bill.
I probably have more reason to support the bill than most people because this September I will have a balanced portfolio. I will have four grandchildren in university. I did not come here to make a lot of money. I am not used to being rich. I am a very common, ordinary individual. I will not support a bill that would absolutely be a slap in the face to 65% of the people who put their X beside my name.
I will not quarrel and make animosity with any member on this side or that side of the House. We will still be friends, but I hope those people watching this debate understand my position. Maybe we should all think twice before we walk away with that amount of money.