Madam Speaker, the member obviously does not know one orifice from a hole in the ground. I will refer him to the facts about the MP pension plan.
He was not here in 1993 when we were first elected. The then reform party was the only party, including the member's party which only had two members, to talk about the MP pension plan. We forced the government to bring the MP pension plan which was more lucrative than any other pension plan in this country into line with the pension plans of senior bureaucrats in the public service.
Members of my party opted out of the MP pension plan the first time there was an option to do so. The second time, when many of us were eligible for the pension plan after having served six years, the Prime Minister gave members who had opted out the option of opting out again. As I have already indicated, my party was the only political party whose members opted out the first time around and chose to opt out again. We opted out again while we were eligible to do so.
The third time around the Prime Minister forced all MPs in the House back into the pension plan whether they liked it or not.
Those are the facts. My party was the only party who had MPs who had opted out not once, but twice, even though we were eligible for the plan. No members in his party did that.
The public should know that it was the Canadian Alliance Party, the reform party back then, that forced the government to come up with an MP pension plan that was in line with one in the public service. That is something we are proud of, and the public should know we did that.