OTTAWA — The Liberal government's point man in the Senate says he needs more than $800,000 from the upper chamber to effectively do his job.
Peter Harder told a Senate committee Thursday morning that he wasn't asking for anything more or less than what Conservative Sen. Claude Carignan received when he was government leader.
Carignan had to ask the Senate for office money because he was not a part of then prime minister Stephen Harper's cabinet like his predecessors, which made him ineligible for financial help from the Privy Council Office.
Harder says he asked the Privy Council Office for money and was told none would be coming.
Senators on the internal economy committee, which oversees Senate spending, punted the request to a sub-committee that has yet to have members appointed to it.
Harder was among a group of seven senators who took their seats in the Senate this week — the first batch of senators appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau under a new appointments process.
