Jim Silye

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 4th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, the member's own President of the Treasury Board this morning stood up in the House and gave the first intervention on this bill. He introduced the bill.

In the bill the President of the Treasury Board defined double dipping. Double dipping was defined by the government-in his own words clearly and specifically, and he did not use the legalese language-as a former member of the federal government receiving remuneration for a job after they are finished serving the Canadian public.

The member the Liberal MP asked me about is not guilty of double dipping. It is not double dipping. This individual served in the provincial legislature. This individual resigned from the provincial legislature. This individual offered his services to the Canadian public on a federal basis.

He made it quite clear he was receiving a pension from the provincial government. He made it quite clear how much the amount was. He was totally above board and open. He did not run from this topic. He did not hide from this topic. He asked the voters in his riding and constituency. He said: "You know my circumstances, you know where I have been, you know where I want to go. If you want to send me there, I will be getting this from the provincial government and I will be getting that from the federal government". And they elected him.

We came here and we said that the MP pension plan is too extravagant, too generous, too gold plated. We are making some sense. We are getting to the government, because it agreed with us. The Liberals have changed it; they have improved it. But it is like everything else: they just go a little in our direction and claim they have gone all the way. It is like bragging. They are bragging they have done what the Canadians need.

Yes, I commend them for reducing the cost of the pensions and making it a little fairer. They are saving $3 million a year. Nobody's denying that. But if you have something wrong with the plumbing or the electrical in your house, fix it right while you are there. When you are doing renovations it is expensive. This whole process is costing a lot of money. Why waste all of that money? Why not do it right? Why not fix it all?

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 4th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, if this is all intended to get me upset, ruffled and riled it will not work. I will continue along pointing out and showing the double standard of the government, the double standard with which it holds itself in much higher esteem than the rest of the Canadian public.

I was trying to point out all of the double standards contained within Bill C-85 and it should be made the same as the private sector. I pointed out the full indexation which protects the amount of money politicians get against inflation and not available in the private sector.

Former members are not touched by this legislation who are double dipping. It is only if they get reappointed at the end of this term. That is another double standard. Why leave them alone? Why leave them untouched? They are the ones who started all this. They are the ones who started giving themselves

these generous benefits. Why is the government protecting them?

The accrual rate has been reduced from 5 per cent to 4 per cent. That is admirable. It is a reduction. It will reflect in savings. There is no question about that. It still is double that of the private sector. The private sector is 2 per cent limited by the Income Tax Act. This defies the Income Tax Act and it goes to 4 per cent. The Liberal government is bragging now that this will increase to 19 years before members get 75 per cent of their six best years. In the private sector at 2 per cent it will take 35 years to get 70 per cent of their salary. It is a double standard; one for a cut above the rest and the other for the ordinary Canadian.

Pension income in the private sector is limited to 70 per cent of an individual's three best years, but for those in Ottawa who are a cut above the rest it is 75 per cent. It is a 5 per cent difference, but it is still a difference. It is a double standard.

The maximum contribution in the private sector is between 5 per cent and 7 per cent of an individual's salary, which is matched by the employer. Here in the House it is 9 per cent, in the Senate it is 9 per cent, and it is matched three and a half times. It has been reduced from six to one to about three and a half to one. That reduction is good. It is headed in the right direction. Come down another 2.5 and I think the government might have a plan which would be acceptable to the Canadian public. Once again, there is a double standard.

Bill C-85 reduces the six-year eligibility rule, which was ridiculous. No one should qualify for a pension for life after only six years of service. I commend and compliment the government for that. In its place it introduced the requirement of the age of 55 for a fully indexed pension; once again, another example of the double standard. In the private sector the age for retirement is 65. If a person chooses to collect their pension before age 65 they receive a reduced amount. That is not so with politicians. They are fully indexed at age 55 with no penalties, away we go. It is 10 years better than the private sector and that should not be. Cabinet ministers have no cap on the level they can contribute from their salaries to the pension plan.

We now have a three tier plan. We have the trough regular plan for all those members of Parliament who were here prior to 1988, such as the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister. We have the trough light plan, which applies to all the rookies in the House, the class of `93. If they are dumb enough to take it, if they are dumb enough not to force the rest of their veterans to follow along with them, then that is the way it is. Then there is the trough stout plan. If a member has higher responsibilities and makes a little extra money there is no cap. We have trough regular, trough light and trough stout. Those are three plans for politicians, who are a cut above the rest. There is only one plan in the private sector. It is another example of the double standard.

Why not cut out the previous members' generous plans, or the previous members who are untouched? Why have this trough stout? Why not reduce it by even 5 per cent to 10 per cent, or buy them out rather than paying them $1 million, $1.5 million or $2 million over 20 or 30 years? Buy them out for $.5 million and be done with it. Let us clean it up and fix it properly once and for all. It is time to cut our losses.

Ministers receive a bonus on top of their salaries; not a bonus, it is extra remuneration for their extra workload. There is no limit on how big their pensions can become. They are not limited to the 75 per cent of the six best years. The Prime Minister and people who have been here for 30 years could end up getting 110 per cent of their salary when they are finished. That is not so in the private sector. That is not so for the rookies of the class of `93. That is not so if a member remains a backbencher, a parliamentary secretary or chairs a standing committee. That is a double standard.

I do not understand why the Liberal rookies did not squawk more. They do have a chance to lead by example. They also have a chance to opt out. I hope they do because Canadians will be looking at whether people opt out and try to have a sensible plan. They might be voted out if they do not opt out.

The bill sends a message that politicians are not ordinary people but a cut above the rest. That is why people do not like politicians. That is what politicians have come to represent: self-serving interests rather than serving the interests of the Canadian public.

Reformers would end full indexation of pensions. We would postpone eligibility for benefits until at least age 65, with accessibility at a reduced rate. Eligibility would be further postponed by the amount of time in which the person was already paid prior to age 65. We would subject the MP pension plan to a tax back according to a formula identical to that of the old age security program.

The Reform caucus has already approved the concept of privately purchased pensions under which future RRSP contributions for sitting MPs would be matched by the government up to the legal limit for contributions.

After eliminating the current gold plated pension plan the House could agree to a proper and balanced compensation package which would be more palatable and compatible with Canadian taxpayers.

Here is my personal recommendation which is certainly debatable but which should satisfy our critics. Whereas individual citizens from time to time wish to enter the public sector to help shape legislation and help make a contribution to Canadian society, whereas it is desirable to attract individual citizens from all walks of life to Parliament regardless of income, a reasonable compensation package should be offered to have this

great institution in the hands of members of Parliament more interested in serving their country rather than for the pay, perks and privileges without inflicting undue financial hardships.

This is an important job. Only 295 people in Canada have it at one time and they must balance personal sacrifices with the public interest. Given the current job description and people's expectations, let us get rid of the impression that somehow MPs are special or deserve something better than the private sector.

What politicians do is freeze their salaries so they can stand up in front of Canadians and say: "We too have made sacrifices". Then they overcompensate with this high gold plated pension plan.

Everyone in the House would agree that if we are truly to address the pension plan we have to talk about our salaries. That option is not open because our salaries are frozen. The government has conveniently blocked real pension reform from all possible angles.

I know that except for Ottawa and area MPs all of us need to spend extra money on a second residence and extra transportation. Therefore let us come clean with Canadian taxpayers and say: "Here are the costs of being an MP. We need a second set of everything. If you want somebody to represent you, it has to be paid for or very few will be willing to serve".

The job with its responsibilities compared with the private sector is at least at a senior executive level and is deserving of a $12,000 per month salary perhaps. Why not get rid of the MP pension plan and the tax free living allowance, the tax free expense allowance, limit members to two terms and offer a taxable salary at $12,000 per month wherein members look after their own expenses. These are my personal points of view and do not reflect the party's point of view whatsoever. MPs should be paid more but once they are removed from office Canadians should not be on the hook for about a million dollars per member. They should be given a private sector pension plan into which they pay 5 per cent matched by the government on a one to one basis.

What is so hard to understand about that? Why this six to one, three and a half to one, 11 per cent, 9 per cent? This is confusing. Upon departure, I would get a one time, one-year severance to help re-enter the workforce and reintegrate into my previous life.

This is no different from the private sector and would make the voters and politicians happy. It is an honest, clean, simple, visible, understandable and, most important, above board recommendation. The rookies in the House have to understand it is not so much politicians' basic pay that angers Canadians, it is the gold plated pensions, the tax free allowance, the junkets, the things unavailable and in some cases illegal for those in the private sector.

The days of pomp and pageantry are over and it is time to start paying politicians what they are worth, no more and no less; no golden handshakes, no fancy accounting and no more double talk. Rookies of the House, it is up to you, it is up to us.

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 4th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate it greatly if you added the extra five minutes this took on to my speech, please.

Let me outline some of the many double standards regarding pensions contained in Bill C-85. It is fully indexed against inflation. This feature is not available in the private sector with the exception of maybe one of the richest companies in the private sector. This indexation costs a lot of money. Members do not contribute enough for that privilege. There is one standard for the elected politician. Yet the ordinary hard working Canadian taxpayer who looks after their own future in the private sector does not have that same opportunity, that same privilege, but a politician does. It is a double standard.

The second point is double dipping will not end for former members, past colleagues of the House like Joe Clark who is currently on the payroll and is receiving his pension plus his salary.

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 4th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, just under two years ago Canadians sent a clear message to Ottawa that they were tired of the status quo, of hypocritical politicians and subsequently voted in 205 rookies.

My speech is to those rookies and my message is, let us not let the veterans corrupt us. When the voters fired the former frontbenchers, the former backbenchers and former prime ministers, they took away their power but for most not their pay cheques. As taxpayers we will be paying them for life 75 per cent of the average of their best six years of salary if they served 15 years.

The issue before us today is the MP pension plan, technically described as two separate items, the members of Parliament retirement allowance and the retirement compensation allowance. This is because the pension plan for parliamentarians was excessively generous and would not have been accepted as a registered pension plan under the Income Tax Act so the politicians split it into two.

I will be talking a lot about double standards. That is my first example of a double standard, one for politicians and one for the rest of Canadians.

An MP currently contributes a total of 11 per cent of the sessional indemnity to obtain pension benefits. Four per cent is applied to their retirement allowance while 7 per cent is applied to the compensation allowance. That is a sneaky way of getting around it. For additional benefits available, an MP with additional duties such as serving as a minister, there is the same split of contributions: 4 per cent to basic and 7 per cent to additional exists.

Under Bill C-85 these percentages and the amount of the salary that they can contribute has been reduced from 11 per cent to 9 per cent. Here we have the basis for a plan that is fully indexed, completely immune to inflation and not available to people in the private sector.

In the name of justice and fairness, I urge the government to go further than it has in Bill C-85 and bring all members, past and present, out of the ivory tower, back to earth and back to reality. I plead with them to show some leadership by example, like Reform Party members.

We have pledged not to take an MP pension in its current form even if this smoke and mirrors bill is passed. Many of us, whether we can afford to or not, have also taken a 10 per cent cut, not because MPs make too much money but because as leaders we know that Canadians will need to sacrifice in the near future and are sacrificing now probably. We are prepared to lead by example at the top, no more double standards, one for politicians and one for the rest of Canadians. We challenge the government to follow our lead because simply put, it is the right thing for it to do especially when it asks Canadians to sacrifice.

Personally, I would like to thank the government and the Prime Minister for allowing Reformers to opt out of the pension plan. It is unfortunate it is available only to the class of '93 and not the class of '97. This is a one shot deal.

Nevertheless provinces like Alberta, that eliminated the government pension plan altogether, will continue to lead by example. It shows integrity. They do not just talk about it. Most important, it sets a higher standard for politicians.

I would encourage all Liberal rookies, to whom I am addressing my speech today, to consider opting out with the Reformers. Weigh it against being voted out by the Canadian public in 1997.

How can the Minister of Human Resources Development complain about 25,000 auto workers withdrawing $70 million annually from the UIC fund when taxpayers paid out an estimated $158 million in 1992 to cover revenue shortfalls in the MP pension fund and currently pay in excess of $2 million a year to do exactly what he is criticizing auto workers of doing? That is hypocrisy.

How can the Minister of Finance nickel and dime RRSP contribution limits in his budget without addressing his own retirement compensation allowance that taxpayers fund more than he does?

The hypocrisy of the Liberal government on this issue is truly disheartening. Liberals promised to reform the gold plated MP pension plan but with Bill C-85 all they have done is nibble around the edges. Canadians will continue to fork out millions of dollars to former cabinet ministers and backbenchers.

The Prime Minister takes great pride in stating that MPs are held accountable at election time. That is when Canadians have their say about the government's performance. If Canadians say that the government stinks and sends it packing like the Tories, these members will still be looked after for life by the Canadian

taxpayers. We may fire them, Canada, but we will continue to pay millions of dollars to look after them.

That is why we are opting out. We feel there are much better ways to look after our futures than this current double standard: one for politicians and one for the rest of Canadians. It is as if the pension plan is a separate UI program for the aristocrats, the select elected few who are better treated than the ordinary Canadian and are somehow, because they serve their country, a cut above the rest.

The Prime Minister scored great political points in opposition when he tried to call the Tories back to the House during the summer to pass pension reform legislation. At the time he stated: "If she"-Kim Campbell-"recalls Parliament we would pass it in one day". That is how fast he would have moved in opposition. It sounds great, but what did he do once his party went over to the other side of the House and he became the Prime Minister? He waited a whole year for 52 more MPs, 46 of whom were Liberals, to qualify for their golden parachutes which this bill protects.

We have three tiers, which I will get to later, of pension qualifiers. Is it any wonder then that some of us on this side of the House question the double standard and the arrogance surrounding the government on this issue?

[Code Of Conduct, May 2nd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, Reform members will vote yea except for those who wish to vote otherwise.

[Supply, May 2nd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, Reform Party members vote nay except for those members who wish to vote otherwise.

[Supply, May 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Leader of the Opposition a straightforward question.

If the federal government gave provinces exclusive jurisdiction over health, education, culture, language and immigration as per the Jean Allaire report, would the Leader of the Opposi-

tion then withdraw his pursuit of separation and agree to recommend to Quebecers to stay in Canada?

[Lobbyists Registration Act, May 1st, 1995]

I should not say it is influence peddling. Somebody said it is a criminal offence to influence peddle. I take that back. As I have said, I am a rookie. I do not know all the terminology.

When they come here to influence the Department of Transport or the Department of Health or whatever department, for example a pharmaceutical lobbyist or someone lobbying for agriculture, if it is for information it is okay but if it is to influence the department or the ministry or affects any kind of decision before the government, they should register. What is wrong with registering? I do not see why they would object to that.

[Lobbyists Registration Act, May 1st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question and the intervention. It was a very good comment. I do not agree with the member because if these groups are asked to come to the standing committee or if they come to the House and go through the offices of members and want to give information, that is okay if it is strictly giving information. However, some are here to influence MPs, to lobby MPs. A lot of people come into my office and try to set up meetings to tell me what their problems are, what the solutions are and to suggest what I should consider, that maybe I should vote a certain way on a bill.

As soon as they start talking about how I should vote or how I should look at a certain situation that basically is influence peddling.

[Lobbyists Registration Act, May 1st, 1995]

I will say it again because I hear members opposite saying it is not true. I would not stand here in the House and say that the Liberal promise is not in the red book. I would not do that. The authors of the red book promised an ethics counsellor would report to Parliament. The ethics counsellor does not report to Parliament and all those geniuses jabbering on the other side better get their facts straight. It is a direct violation, a broken promise.

Along with the government we wish to restore integrity to politicians. We have to get there from here because there is a long way to go. The book On the Take has cast a negative light on all politicians.

I am a rookie politician. I am a politician now by profession because I get paid for it, but in my heart and in my mind I am still a businessman. I know what I thought two years ago when I was on the outside looking in here at what these people were doing. I was not too happy about that. I was so frustrated that I decided to run.

Now I am hoping that by being here and being able to express my point of view I can now say I would like to restore integrity to politicians. The government should be listening rather than talking. I know some of its members are very talented and can talk and listen at the same time, but not too many people are able to do that.

When I accuse the government of sophistry, which is no more than using clever but misleading arguments for a false conclusion, sleight of hand is another good way of saying it, my concern is it talks about the great and wonderful things it is doing for the country when it really is not. It is letting Canadians down.

It has bills like the Lobbyists Registration Act and the motion today for a joint committee on a code of ethics, a joint committee with the Senate and the House of Commons to enact a bill that would define the code of ethics. Why is there a need for all this?

Two months ago the Prime Minister said in the House that we have all these things in place. Cabinet ministers must take all sorts of oaths. We have to take oaths as members of Parliament. We have all sorts of rules controlling what we can and cannot do. We are into about six levels of controls to ensure we restore respectability for parliamentarians.

We want to know what is happening in the bureaucracy. We want to know who is in charge. The Lobbyists Registration Act does make a lobbyist register who they are lobbying with within the department. Are they seeing the deputy minister? Are they seeing Mr. Dodge? The Canadian public should know that after a meeting with Mr. Dodge he changed his mind on a certain issue or that his recommendation changed. There is nothing wrong with that. That is a positive. That is not a negative and yet the government will not put that in.

We have about three or four strong recommendations for the bill and we will continue to put them forward in the interest of all parliamentarians and in the best interest of some lobbyists. There may be some former politicians who after a couple of years off could come back and be lobbyists, and they would be darn good lobbyists, to help their reputation, to help them build on the experience they have gained by working in government so they can help other Canadians. Through open disclosure and the rules working both ways, I believe the bill could help a lot of people within government.

The bill is another example of the feel good, talk good, do nothing government that likes to tell us everything it is doing is wonderful and there is no room for improvement. I am sorry to hear that. With my intervention today I hope maybe one or two of these suggestions I have made may stick, although I rather doubt it.