Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-518.
As I mentioned in my question to the member a few minutes ago, members of the NDP will be supporting the bill at second reading.
However, I want to raise the caveats right off the top. The two caveats that we have raised are with regard to the Nova Scotia model. The Nova Scotia NDP government brought in the model legislation that basically stood by the principle that Canadian legislators should abide by the law of the land. That legislation was put in place by the NDP government in Nova Scotia and ensured that for a maximum of no less than five years any offence punishable by imprisonment would mean that the member, in this case the member of the House of Assembly in Nova Scotia, would see his or her pension benefits removed.
As members well know, what that does is allow, still, for the lump-sum payment on pensions, but what it takes away, if somebody has committed this criminal offence, is the additional pension top-up that the taxpayers normally would provide for a pension, whether we are talking at the provincial or the federal level.
We agree with the principle that once a member of Parliament is elected, the member of Parliament has the responsibility to abide by the law of the land. Because of that, we say that this kind of legislation is welcome.
However, as the member has already indicated, we would be looking and seeking amendments to change it to five years for a criminal offence and we have seen, I think, from the member, some willingness to compromise on that. That is welcome.
The other concern that we have raised, though, and it is not a little one, is that former spouses or dependents not be penalized by this.
In the case of the Nova Scotia law that the Nova Scotia NDP government put into place, it ensured that any entitlement a former spouse may have in court or a court-ordered restitution would be deducted from the MHA's pension. What that means, in the context of Bill C-518, is that it would assure that those expenses, in the case of a former spouse or a court-ordered restitution, would be taken away and sent to the spouse or to the victim who receives the court-ordered restitution. That is still an open question for Bill C-518.
Though we are in agreement in principle on second reading, we are certainly hoping at the committee stage that the flexibility that the member has shown with regard to the move from two years to five years would also be considered, in terms of former spouses or court-ordered restitutions.
We agree with the principle of the bill. We do believe some of the details need to be worked on. That is our role here in Parliament, in the House of Commons. NDP members work very diligently to correct, often, mistakes or weaknesses that happen in government bills. It is our pleasure to do it up until 2015 when, of course, we will producing the type of legislation that we are sure Conservatives will be supporting because we will actually do the work beforehand so that the problems are worked out prior to.
However, it does raise a question because here we have a bill from a Conservative member, which is a welcome bill, that says very clearly Canada's legislators should abide by the law of the land.
It just brings to mind the concerns that we have been raising in the House of Commons over a wide variety of offences that have taken place by Conservatives, and also Liberals, in the other place. We have seen this repeatedly. We have been raising these questions in the House of Commons, repeatedly, trying to get answers about the types of offences we are seeing.
To our mind, abiding by the law of the land has to start at the very top. It means answering clearly when questions are asked. In this House, we have been asking clear questions for a number of weeks and have been getting answers, but the answers, tragically, seem to change. Depending upon the day of the week or I guess whatever the Prime Minister had for breakfast, we are getting different answers back.
That is not the way Parliament should function.
We did, as members know, put out playing cards a month ago at the Conservative national convention, talking about some of the Conservative—