Honourable senators, I rise today to put a few words on the record with respect to Bill C-2.

Let me begin by saying that I cannot support this bill because I hate deficit financing — unless it is to pay for war, famine or pestilence. We have no war; we have no famine. And as for pestilence, nobody really knows what it is.

As our colleagues Senators Smith, Marshall and Neufeld — and now Carignan — in excellent speeches have pointed out, this bill was promoted as being revenue neutral and that it would help the middle class — except that it does not. And it is not revenue neutral, either. As we heard from Senator Day, there is at least a $1.5 billion shortfall in this bill. That amount of red ink is enough to keep the Senate Chamber's carpet dyed red through Canada's one hundred and fiftieth birthday, all the way to its two hundredth.

I have some sympathy for senators who say that because this bill is a major component of the government's election platform, they cannot vote against it. And there are senators who say that we can simply vote no and send this bill back to the House of Commons. These senators are, of course, wrong, because if a majority of senators vote no, we do not simply send the bill back to the house but we defeat the bill, which I'm not sure is a wise course, especially given the various parliamentary conventions raised earlier in the debate.

Colleagues, I'd like to offer a third alternative, which I call in this instance — for me, anyway — an indirect no, and that is abstention. I will be abstaining at third reading because I cannot put aside my principles and vote for such a poorly written bill, nor can I vote against it and risk a bill being defeated that was a central part of the government's platform and that passed the House of Commons.

For if ever we do — and I hope we do at some point — defeat a house bill, I want that bill to be worse than this one. I want to save my "no" vote for a vote that really challenges the house, and I think these are coming — the election reform bill that we expect, the marijuana bill, and who knows what else. This terrible bill is not worth my "no," so I shall abstain, and I hope others do too.