Michel Guimond

[Ethics, November 9th, 2006]

This is unbelievable, Mr. Speaker. This means that anyone can use the fax machine in the minister's office for anything they like. Is this really what it means?

Will the Prime Minister call his minister to order and tell him that his behaviour is not only unethical, but it also violates the Standing Orders, and that this is both unacceptable and intolerable?

[Ethics, November 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, faced with a government that boasts about its transparency and prides itself on having introduced Bill C-2, we were naturally very surprised to learn that the fax machine in the constituency office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency was used by his father, Elmer MacKay, a former Solicitor General of Canada, in his work as a lobbyist defending an individual who is facing fraud charges in a court in Germany.

Will the minister acknowledge that his father's use of that office equipment constitutes inappropriate use of House of Commons property?

[Judges Act, November 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is simply an attempt to play politics with the issue of salary increases for parliamentarians. The committee had suggested a much higher salary increase. In order to look good to the public, if parliamentarians were in the same boat as judges, in terms of salary, then they could say it was common knowledge and that was how things worked.

However, when the independent commission suggested a larger salary increase, the Liberal government of the time panicked and said it was outrageous, that the salary increases were too big and that people would complain. Nonetheless, the commission made its decision and we no longer vote on our own salary increases. We leave it up to this neutral, independent and credible agency. Because it is panicking, the government is now saying that this will be all right for judges, but that it is outrageous for parliamentarians.

The Bloc Québécois is sticking to what it said in 2004. Those who are watching us could conclude that apparently only the Bloc is against this bill. We are against it because we want to be consistent with the position we took at the time.

In 2004, we maintained that what the government wanted to do was outrageous. We were opposed to it since it was not a matter of supporting a salary increase for judges because the government had gone ahead with this reform. We are simply being consistent with what we said then. We said we would react this way when they introduced the bill on increasing judges' salaries. We expected the Conservative government to change its mind and not behave like its Liberal predecessor. However, it is behaving exactly the same way—

[Judges Act, November 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, a distinction must be drawn. I can reply, but it is a matter of judges’ salaries.

Having been director of personnel in a hospital for two years I know that we need to remember that doctors are paid on a fee-for-service basis. In Quebec, there is a health insurance remuneration system. In a hospital, the chief of staff does not earn more, so far as I know, than the president and CEO, even though he is a medical doctor. He is the one who liaises with the medical and dental staff, but he is part of the administration.

When I was the personnel director, I was in category 14, the chief of staff was in category 15, and the president and CEO was in category 21. Indeed physicians are paid on a fee-for-service basis and have hospital privileges. However physicians working in the hospital in Lévis for instance, like Dr. Georges L'Espérance, who did a carpal tunnel operation on me recently, have operating privileges there but are not employees of this hospital. My example was more in relation to the private sector where there is a salary structure for managers and one for unionized employees. I do not think we can go on debating this for very long.

The hon. member should consider something else in regard to this bill. The Bloc Québécois does not necessarily support it at any price. To prove it, the Bloc favours the old system under which the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court earns as much as the Prime Minister. Under this bill, the Chief Justice, the most senior public servant appointed by the Prime Minister, will earn $3,000 more than the Prime Minister. We think that is unacceptable.

[Judges Act, November 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague had a hard time naming my riding. He called it Charlevoix—Haute-Gaspésie—Montmorency, rather than Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord. I will stick to a riding of 351 km, exclusively on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River. If the hon. member wants to ask the chief electoral officer to also give me the Haute-Gaspésie, this will definitely present a problem for me.

But let us get back to the issue before us. The hon. member is right. Until such time as Quebec becomes sovereign and has its own salary determination process for Quebec judges—I was going to say “for Quebec or provincially appointed judges”—this bill puts increasing pressure on the whole wage plan for judges appointed by the Quebec government.

[Judges Act, November 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to congratulate you on how you direct the proceedings when you are in the chair. Everything runs very smoothly.

I am pleased to speak about Bill C-17, an act to amend the Judges Act and certain other acts in relation to courts, and especially about judges' salaries. First, I would like to say that the Bloc Québécois does not support the bill in principle, and I will explain why. I will also explain what we in the Bloc Québécois would suggest.

In their statements before question period and whenever they get the chance, the Conservatives like to say, “Oh, the Bloc is useless, the Bloc doesn't make any proposals”, and so on. I would remind hon. members that the Bloc is not content merely to criticize. It also suggests improvements to legislation proposed by the government. When legislation is acceptable and sounds reasonable, the Bloc Québécois votes for it. We do not want to stoop to petty politics by saying, “We are opposed to that because it comes from the government or another party”. But when legislation does not seem reasonable, the Bloc Québécois is not afraid to strongly condemn it and suggest improvements.

This bill proposes that the government increase judges' salaries by 7.25% effective April 1, 2004. Yes, Mr. Speaker, you heard correctly, 7.25%. I am speaking to the people sitting in the gallery or watching us on the Parliamentary channel. I would like to know whether many of them got a 7.25% increase in the past year.

As my colleague from Alfred-Pellan so aptly pointed out, when we go to seniors' facilities and golden-age clubs, people say to us, “Our old age pension cheque went up last month”. It went up by 18¢ or 47¢, but that does not even buy one cup of coffee a week. It is important to stress that this bill provides for a 7.25% salary increase for judges, who incidentally are not underpaid.

I wish to say right away that the Bloc Québécois did not set out to campaign against judges as individuals or as an institution. What is at issue is legislation which gives judges a 7.25% increase in salary retroactive to April 1, 2004. That is the issue. I would not want anyone to make allegations that the Bloc Québécois has something against judges, because that is not at all the case.

We in the Bloc Québécois believe that this salary increase is completely unreasonable. I will also explain how it came about under the process, what we had before and what happened at the time, and so how we now have a bill which provides solely for increases in judges' salaries.

We also realize that by constantly changing the recommendations of the Judicial Compensation and Benefits Commission, both the Liberals and the Conservatives unduly politicize the process of setting salaries. In this matter, the Conservative government has chosen to continue this hypocritical tradition instituted in the 13 years of Liberal rule, by continuing not to link the salaries of parliamentarians and judges.

Here is what happened. We realized that it was a delicate matter for parliamentarians to vote on their own salary increases. This could give rise to comments by columnists or the public, citizens who we meet by chance at various activities in our neighbourhoods, at the mall or at social events.

Sometimes people would tell us that it made no sense for us to vote for our own salary increases. That is quite true. The government at the time, the Liberal government, had contacted us about a different process for determining the salaries of parliamentarians and judges. There is a commission that sets the salaries and examines various criteria, including the cost of living, inflation and salaries paid under various collective agreements in Canada. This mechanism is fairly complex and I certainly would not have the time to explain it in detail in a 20-minute speech.

Accordingly, members would no longer have to vote on their own salaries since it would be the role of the commission to make a decision on that subject. This was a body made up of House leaders. Earlier today—at the time I was working in committee—our House leader probably explained that some basic principles were established. For example, to determine the salary of the Prime Minister, one should ask what is the highest office, in terms of hierarchy but also in terms of salary, appointed by the Prime Minister. Who is that? That person is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

The question then was whether it was normal, acceptable and realistic that the Prime Minister should earn the same salary as the highest official that he or she appoints. All the parties were represented around the table and all answered “Yes” to that question. That was how it was established that the salary of the Prime Minister should be the same as the salary of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

A second question also arose : is it normal, acceptable and realistic that ministers, who have a little less responsibility than the Prime Minister but a little more responsibility than a constituency member, should receive 75% of the salary paid to the Prime Minister? All parties answered “Yes” to that question, and as a result ministers’ salaries were established. I purposely did not use the words “ordinary member” or “mere member” because even the Prime Minister is a “member” before becoming Prime Minister. The same applies to ministers because we are in a parliamentary system. Unlike us, in other countries the ministers are appointed by the Prime Minister or President without the need to be elected. We are in a parliamentary system with 308 members.

That led to a third question. What about the other members in this House? That includes me, as well as the majority of my colleagues who are here in the House at noon today and who are listening attentively to my remarks. Is it normal that these members should earn 50% of the salary of the Prime Minister and 25% less than a minister because they have fewer responsibilities? Thus, the salary for members was established.

The salary structure of the 308 elected members of this House was tied to the recommendations of this totally independent commission and, through it, the salary of judges was also determined.

Still, through some petty politicking, in 2004, the House leader, and government House leader, when the Liberals were in power, decided that it was no longer appropriate for members’ salaries to be pegged to judges’ salaries, and that we should put an end to that.

The outcome was that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court now earns more money than the Prime Minister. I will explain the figures later, if time allows.

So the most senior public servant appointed by the Prime Minister now earns more money than he does. I worked for 16 years in human resources, in the pulp and paper industry, before becoming an MP. I never saw an employee, a worker, earn more than the plant manager, unless of course he did excessive overtime, spent literally 95 hours a week in the factory and worked all holidays, etc. Industrial health and safety legislation, however, stipulates that employees must not work more than a certain number of consecutive hours, I think it is 16 hours.

So we have before us a totally absurd principle pertaining to salary structure, introduced at the time by the Liberal Party House leader, Tony Valeri, and perpetuated by the Conservative government. What is needed is to separate the remuneration of MPs from the remuneration of judges, which is the point of this bill.

We in the Bloc Québécois, through our House leader, gave our word in good faith. We were in favour of the principles whereby judges’ salaries should be linked to MPs’ salaries.

This is not petty politicking on our part. We are not challenging this out of plain pettiness towards the judiciary. We are acting on the following ground: if the earlier principle was true when it was established, how is it different today?

I remind the House that this year MPs got a 2.4% salary increase. I still have contacts with the private sector and the public sector, and I think that this matches the increases given to union employees in the large private sector companies, whether paper mills, aluminum plants or the automobile industry—which unfortunately we no longer have in Quebec. I consider that this percentage is reasonable and acceptable, but what about the 7.5% that the judges are going to get? It is totally unacceptable.

The Bloc Québécois is proposing an independent salary setting mechanism for parliamentarians as well as for judges, and calling for the government to reintroduce a legislative obligation to link the salaries of parliamentarians to the salaries of judges.

Also, because the indexing of the salaries of judges and parliamentarians has to be reasonable, the Bloc Québécois is asking that the salaries of judges be based on the same indexing mechanism as the salaries of parliamentarians, so that their salaries increase each year in step with those of unionized employees of big corporations in the private sector.

This is what I wanted to say on the matter. For all these reasons, I can tell this House that the Bloc Québécois will not support this bill, at least not in principle. This bill will likely be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, on which I sit.

In due course, we will determine whether amendments should be proposed. This bill is completely unacceptable. Furthermore, I deplore the fact that the Liberals and Conservatives are speaking with one voice on this matter. This is sheer hypocrisy. They are ignoring the facts in order to try to look good.

I would like to repeat once again that our position does not mean that we have anything against judges, either as individuals or as an institution. I would not want there to be any misunderstanding about what we are saying. Bill C-17 is before the House and the Bloc Québécois is offering its opinions on this bill. Let no one think that we wish to put certain people in categories.

[Judges Act, November 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Why is my colleague sitting in the seat belonging to my Bloc Québécois colleague for Berthier—Maskinongé?

[Firearms Registry, November 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the question is not about whom the minister meets. We are talking about the make-up of the committee, which is there to provide advice. This committee consists of an arms merchant, a hunters’ association and some police officers who have said, speaking as individuals, that they oppose the firearms registry.

How much credibility does the Minister of Public Safety think he has when he systematically packs the advisory committee with people who think like him?

[Firearms Registry, November 8th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Safety says he consults the advisory committee. It seems, though, that he has gotten rid of all the committee members who were in favour of keeping the firearms registry. He has replaced them solely with people who share his ideological approach and are in favour of eliminating the registry.

Will the minister admit that in doing this he has just transformed the advisory committee into a pro-firearms lobby?

[Aeronautics Act, November 7th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois will vote against this motion.