Madam Speaker, there is a lot to be said on making sure there is a proper accounting at committee of value for money to make sure these scarce dollars are being put to the best use. In British Columbia, we do not even have access to rapid testing, so there will be questions about whether there is value for money in this case.
I want to ask the member about competency, because the government could have made this into a supply bill. It easily could have added it to the estimates or the supplementary estimates, yet it has done this expenditure through an actual bill.
Why does the member think the government has done that? Is it because it cannot budget? Was it because the Prime Minister needed to pull a COVID rabbit out of his hat so he could tell the provinces to look at what the government is doing for them? I would like to find out what the member has to say about the unique nature of this particular proposal and why it was not budgeted for through the usual processes.