Hon. Terry M. Mercer: Honourable senators, I want to make my annual speech on supply, and I want everybody to think about this. We’re going to go out of here, and you will hear people criticize this chamber — the chamber of sober second thought — and they will say, “Well, we’ve got the House of Commons.”

Let’s just see what we’ve got in the House of Commons with respect to the spending of $5 billion. We’ve got 20 minutes spent yesterday to approve this in the House of Commons — 20 minutes.

And what did the Senate do? The Senate yesterday spent six hours on this subject. Then, again early this morning, another hour was spent on this. That’s 7 hours, compared to 20 minutes in the House of Commons to spend $5 billion of taxpayer money. I think we needed to spend more than 7 hours but, boy, we sure as hell had to spend a lot more than 20 minutes.

So don’t forget that when you go home at the break and people criticize you, mention to them that their member of Parliament, no matter what party he or she is a member of, spent 20 minutes to spend $5 billion of their money. Twenty minutes. Shame on them and shame on any government that allows this to happen.

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.