Mr. Speaker, if I counted right there were four questions, but I will try to deal with them as quickly and as directly as possible.
On the first question with respect to the commitment or the comments made by the hon. member's leader, I guess I can take from that, and judging by the comments made, that the leader of the official opposition would be very attracted to this type of legislation and probably would in fact support it, judging from the comments.
The purpose of introducing this legislation is in fact to delink, as I have said. Under the present arrangement there has been a 1.3% increase as a result of an index in the Judges Act, so members of Parliament have received a 1.3% increase, which takes us from about $139,000 to about $141,000.
With Bill C-30, in fact, the difference would be about $200. There would be a $200 difference, and the actual index averaged 1.5% for the previous year, which is published in February, and that would be the number for the year 2004.
With respect to the Judges Act itself, I think it is very clear that the intent here is to delink and that by doing so we have in fact brought forward an independent piece of legislation for the House to deal with specifically on members' salaries.
I might also remind the member that for the judges' salaries it is a bit more than 11%; actually about 16% over four years. This piece of legislation would obviously serve to delink members' salaries from that particular proposal. I think it better reflects, frankly, what Canadians are looking for in MPs' salaries and certainly I think it better reflects the will of Canadians.