On debate, I guess. I wanted to ask a question, but I am apparently on debate.

On that, colleagues, I have just a couple of minutes to speak about this. Last night, Senator LaBoucane-Benson, the government deputy leader, gave her Senate sponsor speech on Bill C-6, which is a matter dealing with $150 billion.

After her speech, I asked her some questions. This was the last question that I asked her:

Can you give us more details about what the largest items included in those special warrants were? You said the total was $73.4 billion. The first one was $40.3 billion, and the second was $33.1 billion for the most recent few months. Please tell us what the largest expenditures were out of these special warrants.

Senator LaBoucane-Benson replied:

Thank you for the question.

I don’t have a breakdown in front of me of the special warrants. They were based on funds that were already approved that were needed to run the government.

As far as getting down into the details, my office would have to provide you with that. I can’t right now.

I responded:

Okay. Then I would just please ask that perhaps you could include that in your third reading speech because it is $73.4 billion. Just receiving a piece of paper or having to watch hours of committee meetings — I think we’d need to know that before we’re asked to vote on $73 billion.

Earlier today, Senator Prosper gave an impassioned speech, warning that the Senate of Canada could become a perfunctory place. Honourable senators, if we don’t want the Senate of Canada to be treated as a rubber stamp by the Government of Canada, we must not allow the Government of Canada to treat us as one. We are about to vote on Bill C-6, which asks us to grant $150 billion to the government. When we seek information about the larger expenditures in $73 billion in special warrants, we should receive that information here in the chamber.

Let’s recall, senators, that special warrants provided the money that the government needed to operate for the five or six months during which the government had prorogued and dissolved Parliament. That $73 billion had no parliamentary oversight until this vote. Despite that, the Government of Canada’s representatives in this place have not given us, as parliamentarians, answers about the $73 billion. That is unacceptable and disrespectful to us as senators, and it is also unacceptable and disrespectful to the millions of Canadians who pay taxes and expect us to watch out for them.

For those reasons, I will be voting against this, and I ask you to consider doing the same. Thank you.