Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the chance to speak briefly on the bill. My colleagues on the opposition side have been talking about the whole notion of the amount of the pay as well as when it might kick in and about whether or not we should be paying a chair or vice-chair of a committee for the work they do aside from their responsibilities as members of parliament.
Frankly, what is lost in this whole debate is the fact that from here on in politicians would not really have the opportunity to set their salaries. It would be done independently. All of this decision making would be taken completely out of the process.
As a result, there would be a system in place that would look at the checks and balances, that would look at the cost of living. We would follow a formula that is not any different from what exists in the marketplace, what exists in government. This is one thing that my colleagues on the opposition side seem to have missed.
The second thing that has been missed in this debate is that for the first time in a long time the amount of the pension that a member of parliament can accumulate over the years of serving in the House of Commons would be reduced. It used to be 5%. It was reduced a couple of parliaments ago to 4%. Now it has gone further down, to 3%. I am sure that if we were to look at the House now there would be five or six members of parliament who would qualify. There would be a new system and a new regime for full pension in the House of Commons. Under the new system it would take 25 years for a member of parliament to be eligible for full pension.
We can cry and shout and jump and dance all we want, but at the end of the day members of parliament do not have the job flexibility of deciding how long they can serve. A member of parliament can be tossed out after four years. As a result, that member of parliament would not be eligible for his or her pension or any part of it. A member of parliament could serve for two or three terms and the percentage of what they receive would not be more than 10% of the $131,000 that is now being proposed before the House of Commons.
In addition to this, something else was missed in this whole debate. In regard to the eligibility of a member of parliament for receiving his or her pension, the age has changed. A lot of people used to say before this that it was a known fact that someone could come into the House of Commons at the age of 24 or 25, serve two terms, quit at 31, collect a pension and move on. That has changed. Under the new regime, not only would a member need to have served for 25 years in the House of Commons as a member elected for seven or eight different parliaments, but the member would also have to be 55. In other words there is no hope for any member of parliament who is under the age of 55 to collect a pension. That also was missed from the debate.