Debates of March 23rd, 2005

Parliament of Canada Act

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first I want to commend my colleague on his remarks in connection with the report stage amendments to Bill C-30. Specifically, I want to ask the parliamentary secretary about this whole issue of linkage and then delinking.

As he correctly said, the official opposition, the Conservative Party of Canada, is supportive of this legislation and indeed supportive of the amendments. I will get to that in my remarks on report stage in a few minutes.

However, one of the things we have been concerned about all along was the linkage to the Judges Act and the fact that whatever increase the judges got would automatically be applied to members of Parliament.

We made the strong argument, and indeed, eventually the government made a similar argument, that there should not be that link or tie between an increase to the salaries of members of Parliament and an increase to judges' salaries.

It was this government that linked MPs' salaries to judges' salaries in the first place. Then the government delinked them. Now the government is going to link salaries to this index.

As I said, while we support linking to this index, we do not understand why judges should not be linked to this very same index as well. Why must they have this special commission, which indeed, if rumour is correct, is recommending an increase of somewhere around 10% or 11% to judges' salaries?

The government has not brought forward the legislation to deal specifically with an increase or this commission's recommendations that would deal specifically with an increase to judge's salaries. As yet, at least, we have not seen the legislation that would allow for that increase.

I wonder if my colleague would agree with me that there is no reason why judges should not be subject to this very same index. He made all the relevant points in his remarks about the validity of this index and the fact that it is fair because it is a reflection of the average wage settlements in the private sector.

I think that members of Parliament in most parties, with the exception of the Bloc Québécois, are willing to go along with that. They feel it is a fair compromise. It takes our own remuneration situation out of our hands so that we would not constantly be caught in this conflict. Why would we not apply the same logic and the same index to the judges?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the official opposition House leader for his comments and for his very constructive support, frankly, for this legislation, Bill C-30, with respect to parliamentarians' compensation being linked to the wage settlement index I referred to earlier.

His question with respect to the potential increases for federally appointed judges is a good one. The government decided to suggest to Parliament legislation delinking us from the Judges Act increases, to some extent because the quadrennial commission established by law to look at the whole issue of judicial compensation decided, of its own motion, to change the basis upon which it evaluated the appropriate remuneration of judges.

My understanding is that previously it had been linked to a number of public sector functions. The commission chose to look at different factors and therefore came up with a suggestion for judicial remuneration which we thought may have been inappropriate in the case of parliamentarians.

I would urge the opposition House leader to wait for amendments to the Judges Act to be brought forward by the Minister of Justice to give effect to the quadrennial commission report. All of his very valid comments will be explained during that debate. I am sure he will be very comforted by the discussion around amendments that will soon be proposed to the Judges Act as a separate issue.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I just have a quick question for the parliamentary secretary.

I would like him to explain something to me. Twenty four months ago, he and his colleagues on the government side rose in this House to explain to everyone that it was extremely important, indeed fundamental, that parliamentary compensation be linked to judicial compensation, that this was government policy and the best approach to setting and establishing a salary for parliamentarians. Now, 24 months later, the same members rise again to explain, this time, that this is the wrong approach.

I would like to know what impact he and his government think they are having on the credibility of parliamentarians across the country by rising 24 months later to take the exact opposite stance.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I had an opportunity to partly answer the Bloc leader's question when I answered the question of the House leader for the official opposition.

This year, when the Judicial Compensation and Benefits Commission prepared its report, which was released by the government in the fall, it decided of its own motion to change the method for calculating judicial compensation and determining whether it is appropriate.

Previously, it was linked to factors in the public service, such as senior government officials. The commission decided to look at how much lawyers were paid in major city firms to determine what would be appropriate compensation for federally appointed judges.

For this reason, and partly because the recommended parliamentary compensation appeared to be slightly higher than what Canadians make on average, we saw fit to delink our salaries from judicial compensation and link them instead to the compensation of Canadians.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and address this amendment to Bill C-30.

On January 12, 2001, a commission chaired by the Hon. Ed Lumley was appointed to study and make recommendations on compensation for members of Parliament. The Lumley commission tabled its report on May 29, 2001, and from that report came Bill C-28 which implemented the proposals in the report. In the report the commission remarked:

Parliamentarians' salaries are important, not just to the members of Parliament themselves but to all citizens; certainly, how we compensate members of Parliament can influence the ability to attract good candidates. Our democracy is based on Parliament's ability to mirror society's basic values and to respond to the needs of Canadians. In turn, Canadians ought to understand that parliamentarians need to be compensated fairly.

The commission recommended a number of changes and established stipends for members who take on certain parliamentary responsibilities, such as chairmen of committees and vice-chairs of those same standing committees. This amendment that we are discussing today reflects and is consistent with the recommendations from the Lumley commission's report.

Before adopting the recommendations from the commission's report, compensation for members who perform certain caucus roles, such as House leader, whip and leader of recognized parties, were already established. However, while there was compensation for the deputy whip of the official opposition, there was no compensation for the deputy House leader for the official opposition.

The reason for forgetting about the deputy House leader may be due to the fact that it is a fairly new position. Before the second world war there was no House leader, let alone a deputy House leader. At that time the Prime Minister managed the business of the House. The outbreak of the second world war caused the Prime Minister to be absent from the House, so he delegated the responsibility of managing the business of the House to one of his ministers, who did the job in addition to his other responsibilities.

As government became more complex, the job of government House leader likewise became more involved. That is why today we have a full time minister responsible for managing the affairs of the House, and that is why he has a deputy House leader and a parliamentary secretary to ably assist him. He is shadowed by me, the official opposition House leader, and I too am assisted by a deputy, currently the member for Calgary Southeast.

The senior House leader positions on the opposition benches evolved with compensation, but the deputy positions did not. Unlike the opposition whip and his deputy, which are positions that go back to the early days of the parliamentary system, the deputy House leader is a relatively new caucus officer. This amendment that we are debating today proposes to correct that omission, and to recognize the position and the hard work of the deputy House leader.

This amendment also recognizes the reality of the multiparty system that we have today in this chamber. We have the Bloc Québécois with 54 members and the New Democratic Party with 19. As much as some of us would like them to go away, they have not. Maybe some day, but until then they also have whips and House leaders, and their deputies should be recognized as well. However, if the Bloc Québécois is insistent and in fact opposed to this amendment that we are discussing today, then I feel that it would naturally follow that its deputy House leader, deputy whip and caucus chairperson will obviously refuse this extra stipend that was revealed in the amendment that is under debate. I would assume that since they are voting against it.

We also have a situation where chairmen of standing committees now receive compensation, but the caucus chairmen do not receive any extra compensation and we should be consistent. To be consistent, this amendment applies the salaries of existing positions to the ones covered by the amendment.

For example, the deputy opposition House leader would get the same compensation as a parliamentary secretary under this amendment. Deputies for the Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party would receive the same compensation as vice-chairs of the standing committees. Caucus chairs for the government and the official opposition would receive the same as the chairs of standing committees of the House, and caucus chairmen of the other two parties would receive the same as vice-chairs of the standing committees. This is a straightforward and a defensible proposal.

My party will be supporting this amendment and the bill. Why will be supporting this legislation? Throughout my 12 years in the House of Commons, I have always maintained that members of Parliament should not be placed in the natural conflict of interest that arises when we have to debate and vote on our own personal remuneration. I am not aware of anywhere else where this happens. I have had many jobs in the private sector and in none of those jobs did I have the advantage of setting my own remuneration or my own perks such as my pension benefits. There is no defensible reason why we would have that here in the House of Commons.

That is why I support the government's initiative to tie any future increases in our salary to a cost of living index that would reflect the average increase received in the private sector, in the real world outside of the chamber. That is a commendable goal of the legislation.

As I said before, the Bloc Québécois does have a valid point. There is more than a touch of irony here. This same government made some very impassioned arguments a couple of years ago about why we needed to link our salary increases to something so that we did not have to set them. We were in agreement with that. The government chose to link them to increases given to judges. As the deputy leader and the House leader for the Bloc Québécois have already stated, there is more than a touch of irony here in the fact that the government did this a couple of years ago and is now arguing against it.

While I support the bill and the amendment, as I said in my question to the parliamentary secretary, I have always maintained that it is incumbent upon the government to defend why two years ago it felt our salary had to be linked to judges and now is being linked to this index in Bill C-30, which is a fairer system and much more defensible.

By extension, I believe that we should watch very carefully when the government brings forward legislation to enact an increase for judges. If an increase of say 1%, to reflect the cost of living index and the average increase that is reflected in the private sector, is good enough for members of Parliament then it should be good enough for judges. We will be watching that very closely.

I take the parliamentary secretary at his word that the government will bring this legislation forward. My predecessor and I have been calling upon the government to do this. We hoped it would bring Bill C-30 and the amendments to the Judges Act forward at the same time so that we could have seen both and seen that they were compatible.

That has not happened. The government has not seen fit to bring that forward at this time. I am looking forward to that when the time comes. I am also looking forward to the debate that will take place hopefully soon on third reading of Bill C-30 when I can once again express the official opposition's support for this legislation.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague with great interest. I too greatly support the linking of our salaries to this private sector index. I congratulate the government on it because it removes the conflict of interest. Virtually everything we do, it seems to me, affects the economy of Canada and so indirectly, almost everything we do influences this index that we are linking our salaries to.

I could tell from my colleague's remarks that a good deal of this appears to me, as I was not involved in the discussions, to have come from the official opposition. I know we are dealing with legislation that affects all parties. It affects the remuneration of the Conservatives, the Bloc and the NDP, so it is not simply for government members.

My colleague and I have been here for exactly the same time and I remind him that I actually once voted against a secret ballot for the chairs of standing committees. I did that not because I was opposed to the secret ballot but because I felt the ballot did not protect the official opposition enough or the official opposition vice-chairs of the standing committees. He will remember that. We must protect the official opposition.

Does he think that this legislation protects the official opposition in situations where, as has occurred in Canada, it is reduced, for example, to one or two members faced with a huge government majority? Do the provisions here deal with that situation and, with due respect to the other parties, protect the official opposition which is so important to the functioning of the House of Commons?

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, if I were a cynic, I would have to say that my hon. colleague is interested in protecting the official opposition because he soon plans to be a member of the official opposition when the Conservatives become the government in the next election. I am left assuming that is why he is so concerned about the status of the official opposition. It is hard for me to follow his rationale

I am assuming it is a serious question in relation to the fact that it states that the extra stipends will be awarded to positions of recognized parties. Recognized parties in the chamber, as we all know, are those that elect 12 or more members of Parliament. He brings up a valid point of what happens and did happen of course following the 1993 election. At that time there were five, not four parties, and two of them were not recognized officially because they elected less than the requisite 12 members.

I am comfortable with the way this legislation deals with that issue. It would continue to acknowledge that a recognized party in Parliament is 12 members or more. I have not heard arguments why we should change that to a lower number, although as my hon. colleague states, the reality is that there have been many instances not only in this chamber but in provincial legislatures where even the official opposition, for example, in my home province of British Columbia, only has two elected members. It does create problems if that indeed happens.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this will also be a relatively short question.

The hon. parliamentary leader of the Conservative Party made a suggestion to us earlier that the Bloc Québécois members opposed to a salary raise should refuse it and let the other parties take theirs. According to him, the Bloc members ought to manage on less.

Frankly, I would ask the leader of the opposition if he is serious in his proposal. In the case of any institution, be it a school, a hospital or a parliament, workers could choose their salaries. The nurses could decide to work for full salary, half salary, with a premium, without one. This makes no sense.

No system in the world could operate that way. This would open the door to the worst kind of demagoguery. Someone sufficiently well off could announce that he would work in Parliament for free, and everyone would find that ever so nice. We would return to the days when representing one's fellow citizens was a privilege of the wealthy. That makes no sense.

I would ask the hon. leader of the opposition if what he is proposing to the Bloc members, that is to not take advantage of the proposed pay raise, is not something like the strategy used by the Canadian Alliance. At the time, all its members announced that they would not take advantage of the pension system and yet now they all do. Not one of them is not in the pension plan, but they let everyone think that it made no sense to take part in it. I would like to know if that is what he is proposing to us because, if he is, we are not interested.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, specifically on the last point by my hon. colleague on the pension plan for members of Parliament, I do not have enough time to get into an elaborate speech on what has transpired over the 12 years I have been here. Clearly, Mr. Speaker, as you are well aware, since you were the House leader and I was the whip at the time the bill came forward, we were involved in a lot negotiations behind the scenes. On the passage of that legislation, all members of Parliament were forced back into the pension plan. The only choice that was left to us was whether to buy our back service. The reality is everybody is now in the same pension plan. That is my answer to question.

As to whether I was serious or not that the members of the Bloc Québécois should consider, since they appear to be opposed to this amendment, willingly giving up the extra stipend for their deputy House leader, deputy whip and caucus, I will leave that for them to decide.

I am expressing my disappointment that they would not be in agreement that those positions, whether it is in their party, our party or any of the four parties in the chamber, are deserving of that extra stipend just as the other positions are, as I laid out in my remarks. I am disappointed that they are not supporting this amendment even though I know they are opposed to the bill itself.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present the position of our political party.

I want to say from the outset that the reason our opinion differs from that of the other political parties it that we refuse to engage in any form of hypocrisy regarding the salaries and allowances of members of the House of Commons.

Indeed, two years ago, members of the House unanimously decided to link the salaries of parliamentarians with those of justices of the Supreme Court and other courts in Canada.

For the benefit of the citizens paying these salaries and watching us, the basic principle was that the Prime Minister's salary should be equivalent to that of the chief justice of the Supreme Court. I realize that the Prime Minister is not performing very well and that, perhaps, he does not deserve to hold this position, but as long as he is the Prime Minister, as far as we are concerned, he deserves the salary of the position. In our opinion, the Prime Minister should earn at least the same salary as the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

These two salaries are paid by taxpayers. Let us stop being hypocritical and admit that from these same taxes the public is paying us. A comparable scale enables the public to evaluate the importance of the work we do. I think everyone agrees that the job of Prime Minister of Canada is equal to if not greater in importance than that of chief justice of the Supreme Court. Moreover, the latter does not have to get elected and he does not have to justify his decisions. He is appointed for life and he must work in a much more protected environment than the Prime Minister, the ministers or any parliamentarian in this Parliament. This is our first point.

How is it that, today, we find ourselves holding a debate that has already taken place? We are once again talking about the salaries of parliamentarians and an amendment is proposed to allow holders of certain positions to enjoy additional monetary benefits.

My comments and my refusal to support the amendment have nothing to do with the value of the work done by these people. Absolutely not. My comments and our position have to do with the whole bill and the process whereby we are once again talking about the salaries of elected members, because of the Prime Minister's lack of courage. That is the reality.

When the Prime Minister realized that the committee recommendation on judges salaries granted an 11% salary increase, there was an outcry across Canada. The Prime Minister addressed this matter quickly. We would have expected a statesman to say that 11% is high for a salary increase and that the salary determination process for judges and members of Parliament would be reviewed. He should have said that in today's economy, it made no sense to give an 11% salary increase to all these people, because it is the public who pays. That is what we would have expected a statesman to say.

However, totally grandstanding, the Prime Minister grabbed the first microphone he could to say that MPs would not be getting an 11% salary increase and that their pay would be delinked from judges' salaries. He acted as though Canadians felt that an 11% increase was too high for MPs, but not for judges. Let us not be hypocrites. For Canadians, an 11% salary increase was too high for judges and for MPs.

An examination of the mechanism is called for, not hypocritical behaviour and image polishing. The Liberals wanted to have everyone believe that they were being generous and that they did not want an 11% increase, but would grant it to the judges.

The public will start trusting politicians when politicians start having principles. To have principles is to be able to carry an argument through to its conclusion.

If the outcome of that argument is that the result is out of proportion, the entire process must be reviewed and not just one part or a little bit that serves our purposes and makes us look good. We must look at the entire process.

We cannot support the amendment and we cannot support the bill. We are busily undoing what this government had us doing 24 months ago. It is absolutely, incredibly, ridiculous. There is a limit to what the people can accept. The same members of Parliament rose in this House to tell us they had found the way to finally solve the problem of parliamentary salaries. Today, these same members are rising to tell us the opposite. I have never seen anything like it.

How can the people have confidence in this Liberal government? It is obvious that a Liberal government says whatever will give it an advantage at the time it is speaking. That is not discourse based on principles; that is discourse based on partisan political interests. That is what we face on the other side. That is why we refuse to act in the miserable film they are proposing. It is not right.

And as for the Conservative Party, to listen to them, it is time to start playing with salaries. We take the salary. We take it not. “I think I do not deserve it, so I will not take my allowance.” “I deserve half my salary, so I will take half.” What kind of society would we have if everyone applied the Conservatives' principles?

In schools, young teachers could say as they were hired, “I come from a well-off family; I will take half the salary to do the job”. Another might say, “I think I am very good; I will take the full salary”, or “I am going to do a good job, but I think being a teacher is not very tiring, so I will take three-quarters of the salary”. This is all nonsense.

This does not seem like a parliament but rather like a day care. Everyone is bringing their own idea and their own opinion to the table, and the impression is that this is how society is built. We have to build our society on principles. We had established principles for determining parliamentary compensation. These principles have been set aside. The Bloc Québécois said that, since the compensation system was being set aside, parliamentarians would not get an increase. Since this is the case and we want to people to be happy, let us ask the public what it thinks. No increase for any parliamentarian: this is the position of the Bloc Québécois.

When the members of this House are responsible enough to properly discuss this issue is when we can talk about linking parliamentary compensation to compensation for senior public servants, the judiciary and whomever else we decide to link our compensation to.

I do not believe there would be a conflict of interest if we were to tie parliamentary compensation to that of public servants. Would we vote for huge salaries for 300,000 public servants so we could give ourselves a $500 raise? That does not hold water. It is not fair, and the way the government is proceeding is not right.

There is one way of doing things for the judiciary, another for parliamentarians, which means much lower increases, yet another for senior officials, who get bigger raises than junior public servants, who in turn get a bigger increase than MPs. It is a total mess. Everything is on a case-by-case basis. Everything depends on partisan interests instead of on principles.

MPs, senior public servants, junior public servants, the judiciary and everyone, big or small, should get the same increase. The same principle should apply to everyone. In my mind, this would be the most logical solution and more acceptable to the public.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first I want to put some context into the debate on Bill C-30 and the compensation for members of Parliament.

As I recall, during the debate a couple of years ago, when the government was intent upon linking the salaries of members of Parliament to judges, I was opposed to that. I felt that what a judge did, in or out of a courtroom, had absolutely nothing to do with the job of a member of Parliament. In fact, there is arguably nothing similar about the two jobs.

Therefore at that time I felt there was no defensible argument for linking the salaries of members of Parliament to the salaries of judges. However I did believe that any linkage at all that removed from the House of Commons the ability to set its own remuneration was a step in the right direction. In other words, it was better than the status quo.

I believe that Bill C-30 is a step in the right direction. Now we can argue all along that the government should have brought this forward a couple of years ago. It should have done it then to link the members of Parliament to the similar average wage increase index that affects people out in the real world, in the private sector, and the increase in salary that they have to face.

This issue came to a head last spring when it leaked out that the commission, which sets the increase for the judges, appeared to be on the verge of setting a 10% or 11% increase in one year for judges and that same increase would have applied to members of Parliament. It is not defensible for us to go back to our ridings and say that we deserve a 10% or 11% increase in our salary when our constituents are getting maybe 1% at best.

I give that framework as a bit of background. I wonder why it is, never mind that the government made the mistake of linking it to judges to begin with, that we would not all be supportive of linking it to the same salary increase that the real world faces every day.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today I really do not agree with the government, but I agree even less with the opposition.

We have just been told that the work done by an MP has nothing to do with that done by a judge. An MP makes laws and a judge interprets them. These areas are very closely related. I will admit that a judge cannot be compared to an MP in that an MP has to be elected. He has to fight every day and he has to constantly be reviewing his positions in order to please his fellow citizens. He is in the hot seat at all times to keep his job, and he must rethink what he is doing every day. That is not the case for a judge. Once appointed, he sits and he brings down the decisions he wants. Unless he is really outrageous, he will stay there, never bothered by anyone. Let it be understood, I have the greatest respect for judges, but once they get in there, there is not much job insecurity.

That said, perhaps the work done by MPs is not like that done by judges. But now they are trying to tell me that it is more similar to what is done by some guy in a plant. I have a great deal of respect for people who work in companies with 500 employees, who work for Alcan, for instance, but I have the impression that my work is a bit more similar to that of a judge, who interprets the law, since I make laws, than to the work done by a man who does welding on some big machine or is an electrician in a plant.

The Conservative Party is telling us that we must separate ourselves from the judges, because our work has no connection to what they do. We should instead link it with what is done in the private sector in Canada. I have a great deal of respect for the work done in factories, but it does not strike me as bearing any resemblance to what we do in Parliament. Under that line of thinking then, the best link found so far is with the judges. Anyone finding a better one must tell us what it is, for time is of the essence. For the moment, I think that it was the best way to go, and still is.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order, please. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake, Freedom of Religion; the hon. member for Souris—Moose Mountain, Agriculture.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to rise in the House.

The New Democratic Party does support Bill C-30. We want to be on the record that we believe that this is a good motion that has been brought forward. We support the work that has gone on between the parties. The report stage amendment was based on all party discussions and we feel it provides fair remuneration for the caucus, the chairs, the deputy House leaders and the deputy whips.

As a side issue, unfortunately there is nothing for deputy hecklers, but hopefully will bring that in at a later date. That is a joke, for the record.

We support the amendment because we in our party believe that our caucus, chair, deputy House leader and deputy whip perform some very important functions in terms of our parliamentary duties in bringing forward the kind of legislation and issues that need to be addressed in this House. We also recognize the work that the representatives of all parties do in this regard.

We believe this deals with the MP issue of compensation. We supported it at second reading and in committee. We believe that pegging it to the industrial wage index is fair and we support that.

Once again, we are always concerned whenever wage increases or anything to do with remuneration is debated in the House as it tends to be a political football, but at this point it is time that we moved forward. It is fair and we support it.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The question is on Motion No. 1. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Deputy Speaker]

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung: