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?