Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the chance to speak to Bill C-30. The bill would implement the long-standing position of the Conservative Party, which is that members of Parliament should not be determining their own salaries.
The last attempt to create an impartial mechanism for determining MPs' pay led it to be indexed to the salary of the chief justice of the Supreme Court whose salary is determined by the Judicial Compensation and Benefits Commission. However, when the commission recently recommended an 11% pay increase for the chief justice, the controversy was reopened.
Clearly, it would be inappropriate for members of Parliament to accept an increase that is so far beyond what most Canadians receive, especially when we are already making a salary that most Canadians can only dream of.
In fact, many people would question whether judges need and deserve an 11% pay raise either. It would have been nice if this legislation could have been accompanied by measures to reform the way judges get paid as well. It is a different issue in some ways because the job description and hiring and firing process for judges is very different than for MPs. It also comes down to preventing people in positions of authority and trust from lining their own pockets at the expense of overburdened Canadian taxpayers.
An 11% pay raise for a backbench or opposition MP would mean a raise bigger than the total annual salary of some Canadians. In fact, Canadians whose entire annual salary is only two-thirds as much as the raise proposed for members of Parliament, would be paying taxes to fund those raises. That would be simply obscene. Of course partly that is because the Liberal government has refused to enact the Conservative policy of increasing the amount low income Canadians can make before they pay taxes. However an 11% raise is difficult to justify in any circumstances.
Members of Parliament do not need exorbitant compensation. Those of us who work hard, stay honest and do our level best on behalf of our constituents and all Canadians, are certainly not in it for the money. Some MPs have already had highly successful careers in the private sector. My hon. colleague from Newmarket—Aurora is a case in point. Although she has worked hard and performed admirably as international trade critic for the government in waiting, she has not accepted a dime from Canadian taxpayers. Instead, she has chosen to donate her salary to a charitable foundation. I applaud her for that.
The Conservative Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, the hon. Danny Williams, is a formidable leader and advocate of his province and has worked extremely hard on issues that are vital to Atlantic Canada, yet he too has decided to forgo his entire salary. He has taken the fight of ordinary Newfoundlanders to heart. He knows they face incredible financial burdens as a result of the high taxes, oppressive business climate and patronage driven, market distorting, reallocation schemes of the federal government, and has placed the interests of Newfoundlanders far above his own personal interests.
Of course not all of us are in the position to work free of charge, and I would not suggest that anyone should do so, but the examples set by our colleagues I have mentioned prove that the best legislators care more about their constituents than about their own compensation.
Canadians are our bosses and I do not think they believe that we need or deserve double digit raises. In fact many Canadians probably feel that they were hoodwinked when they hired certain candidates to represent them in this place.
Government members were hired because they said they would enact democratic reform, make the equalization system more conducive to economic growth and make the federal government more fiscally responsible. I think most Canadians would say that we as a Parliament have not yet fulfilled these basis elements of our job and we should not expect a raise until we live up to our commitments.
I support the bill because I am hopeful that it will create a reasonable and impartial mechanism for determining compensation for members of the House so we can finally stop debating our own pay and start debating the things that matter to Canadians.
