Bill C-14 (Historical)

COVID-19 Emergency Response Act, No. 2

A second Act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19

Part 1 amends the Income Tax Act to introduce an emergency wage subsidy as part of the response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Part 2 amends Part IV.‍1 of the Financial Administration Act to provide that certain provisions of that Act, as enacted by the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act, cease to have effect on the day after September 30, 2020.

COVID-19 Emergency Response Act, No. 2

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

moved that Bill C-14, A second Act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19, be now read a second time and referred to a committee of the whole.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Pursuant to order adopted earlier today, a member of each recognized party and a member of the Green Party may speak to the motion for not more than 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes for questions and comments. Members may split their time with another member.

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade.

We are living in a strange time. On Wednesday, Passover Seders were moved online. This Easter weekend, churches normally filled with people are standing empty. Towns and cities across this country have strangely empty streets. The public health measures required to stop the spread of COVID-19, such as social distancing and the closing of public and private spaces, are having a profound impact on Canadians and on our economy. All sectors of the economy are being effected by COVID-19 as civil society has mobilized to stop the spread of this disease.

Whether times are good or bad, businesses provide the jobs, products and services that Canadians rely on to keep their communities going.

Small businesses in particular are vulnerable. They are the heart of our communities and they need to be supported. We know non-profits and charities are facing challenges too. Canadians' needs for their services are going up, but their donations are going down.

These employers need our help to protect the jobs of Canadians who work hard and to maintain the resilience of our economy.

As leaders, we need to confront the very real needs of Canadian business owners and workers, and take action to give them the support they urgently need in the face of this pandemic. This is where the Canada emergency wage subsidy comes in. To help Canadians and businesses get through these tough economic times, the government is proposing through this legislation a wage subsidy of 75% for qualifying employers for up to three months, retroactive to March 15, 2020. The Canada emergency wage subsidy is a key measure to ensure that Canadian families can count on a source of income through this difficult time.

The Canada wage subsidy would allow businesses to retain their employees and rehire workers who were laid off to ensure that the Canadian economy can recover from this crisis from a position of strength. It is important to note that by retaining their employees, Canadian businesses will rebound better after the crisis.

The Canada emergency wage subsidy is proposed to apply at a rate of 75% of the first $58,700 earned by employees, representing a benefit of $847 per week, per employee. The program would be in place for a 12-week period from March 15 to June 6 of 2020. Eligible employers would be those who suffer a drop in gross revenues of at least 15% in March, or 30% in April or May, when compared to the same month in 2019 or to an average of January and February 2020 revenues.

This subsidy is being offered to employers of all sizes and in every sector, with the exception of public sector entities. Our government wants employers and employees across the entire country to get the help they need.

Non-profits and registered charities will be able to benefit from all of the additional flexibilities for the revenue drop test that I have just described.

We also know that different types of organizations in this vitally important sector are facing different types of funding pressures. Non-profit organizations and charities will, therefore, be able to choose between including government revenues and excluding them when calculating their drop in revenue. Eligible employers would be able to access the Canada emergency wage subsidy by applying through a Canada Revenue Agency online portal.

The amount of the wage subsidy will be determined on the basis of the actual wages or compensation paid to the employees. We expect every employer to do everything they can to cover the difference to get the wages to 100% of the maximum amount covered.

We have designed the subsidy to provide generous and timely financial support to employers and we expect that employers will use this subsidy to support the health and well-being of their employees. The legislation includes a provision to protect the integrity of the program and to ensure it is not misused. An officer of any organization that applies would have to attest to the accuracy of the claims. Any company that receives the benefit and is then discovered to be ineligible would have to repay the amount of subsidy received, and there would be serious consequences for anyone who tried to take advantage of the subsidy.

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing disruption across our economy in ways big and small. The Canada emergency wage subsidy is only one of a myriad of measures introduced by the government recently to support Canadians through the outbreak of COVID-19. Over the last three weeks, our government has announced a series of broad economy-wide supports as a part of Canada's COVID-19 economic response plan. This plan will help to ensure Canadians can weather this storm.

Our government is offering the Canada emergency response benefit to anyone who loses all their income because of COVID-19. The application period opened on Monday and millions of Canadians filed their application.

Our government is also allowing businesses, including self-employed workers, to put off their GST/HST payments and import duties owing until June. This measure is akin to giving Canadian businesses interest-free loans worth as much as $30 billion. What is more, our government has extended the deadline for filing income tax returns and remitting income tax owing, which leaves $55 billion circulating in our economy. These measures will help businesses continue to pay their employees and their bills and contribute to controlling the liquidity problems companies are experiencing across the country.

Our government has also introduced the new Canada emergency business account. This program will provide $25 billion to eligible financial institutions to provide interest-free loans that include a partial write-off with conditions to small businesses, including not-for-profit organizations.

These loans of up to $40,000, guaranteed and funded by the Government of Canada, will ensure that small businesses have access to the capital they need at a 0% interest rate so they can pay for rent and other important costs over the next number of months. Additionally, if they pay the loan back before December 31, 2022, 25% of it, up to $10,000, will be forgivable.

For small and medium-sized companies that require greater help to meet their operational cash flow requirements, our government created the new small and medium-sized enterprise loan and guarantee program, which will provide $40 billion in lending support, through the EDC and BDC, for small businesses, to help them weather the impacts of COVID-19.

These are uncertain times. We understand that Canadians urgently need support. We are using all the tools available to make sure we protect Canadians' health and keep our economy strong. Now is the time for us to come together and to work together. Across the country we are seeing civic action on a level not seen in generations. We know Canadians are staying home to help stop the spread of this disease. By doing this, they are saving lives and protecting our front-line workers.

I am calling on all parliamentarians to swiftly pass this bill. Canadian workers and businesses deserve the certainty. We know that when this crisis passes, and it will pass, Canada's workers and businesses will be ready to bounce back, building an even stronger and better Canada.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his speech and for the openness with which his office has received our suggestions.

I want to talk about a number of these suggestions that I think he and his office have received favourably.

One, our early concern with the wage subsidy was that an employer would not find out until the end of a pay period whether he or she was eligible to receive a subsidy. In other words, employers would have to make a decision to hire people without knowing, for 30 days, whether their wages would be subsidized. We suggested that they have the ability to get an answer at the beginning of the pay period, as opposed to just at the end.

Two, we raised the concern of owner-operator businesses that do not have $5,000 of wages and therefore earlier did not qualify for the CERB because they paid themselves previously with dividends. This group was not eligible for either a subsidized wage or the CERB under the original iteration. I want to know if the minister can update us on any adjustments he has made to solve that problem. I believe there is some good news for that group.

Third, there is a concern about businesses that are not arm's length from one another; in other words, there is a parent company and a division. The division might have experienced massive revenue drop, but the parent company has not, and therefore the division was not, under the original proposal, eligible for any wage subsidy. I believe the ministry has taken that concern seriously as well.

I wonder if the minister can update us on those three concerns and how he has addressed them.

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have been pleased to work with all parties in the House and to work with businesses across the country as we think about putting in place measures that are dealing with a very dynamic challenge. What we have come up with are some ways to ensure that businesses can know that they will be able to continue to have access to the wage subsidy based on having access to it in the month previous. We see that as critically important.

We are continuing to look at how we can make sure that the emergency response benefit supports people who have had $5,000 in income over the past year. Of course, one of the things that people have brought up is how we can deal with dividends in that regard, and that is something we are indeed considering. There will necessarily be some things that we will need to consider as we bring out these measures.

These measures, of course, are intended to support the broadest possible cross-section of Canadians as rapidly as possible. We are really pleased that we are able to help so many Canadians. We have seen it this week with the number of people who have applied to and have been accepted into the Canada emergency response benefit. Similarly, we want to see that happen with the wage subsidy. We are seeing businesses already coming out saying that they are going to re-employ the employees they have laid off because of this.

We think that the measures we have taken, again in collaboration with Canadians and with members of the House, are going to have an important impact on allowing us to deal with this crisis.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we all know that this is a huge crisis and that it is having a lasting impact on the economy.

The government responded with some fairly strong measures, which is appreciated, and that is good. All the parties called for such measures, and we joined together to try to give our businesses some breathing room and ensure that workers are not left behind.

The assistance measures are fairly significant and broad. They could be described as wall-to-wall measures. However, we know that some sectors will be more affected than others. Travel agents are one example. We all know that, at the end of the crisis, people will not immediately start travelling again. Travel agents are extremely concerned.

I was wondering, and I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Minister of Finance, whether something will be done in the short term for travel agents or for the sectors that are experiencing greater financial difficulty that will put them at risk after the crisis.

Will there be sector-specific assistance for those people?

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question.

I know that some sectors are struggling right now. That is why we moved fairly quickly and introduced the Canada emergency response benefit for employees, the wage subsidy and the interest-free loans.

We will look into other measures and other levels of credit, as well as other ways to improve their situation. We are looking at other approaches and, when we come up with other measures, we will be transparent and make them known as soon as possible.

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Minister of Small Business]

Mr. Speaker, as the Prime Minister has said, Canada's small businesses are places that make our communities feel like home. Restaurants and cafes have had to close their doors; tech companies are impacted, and bookshops and clothing stores have had to lay off their staff. Small businesses truly are the heart of our communities, employing 8.3 million hard-working Canadians and accounting for nearly seven out of 10 private sector jobs in the country.

I start with this statistic because Canadians have been hearing a lot about small businesses recently, and although a lot of people can think of a small business owner, or they themselves are small business owners, we do not often think that small businesses are the driver of our national economy. However, they are, and I know that Canadians across the country want to see their favourite business reopen and thrive after all of this is over.

Our economy needs small businesses to remain resilient and to rebuild in the weeks and months to come, so I want Canadians to know that, in the face of COVID-19, we are listening to our business owners and our employers and responding to them. Right now, our goal is to save jobs and save businesses. We know that the single most important asset that businesses have in that recovery are their employees.

Growing up helping my own parents run their small business, I know it can often be a family affair. With 75% of Canadian small businesses having fewer than 10 employees, I have heard from many employers that their teams are so closely knit that they feel like family. If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we are all in this together. Whether they are small businesses that have had to temporarily close or lay off employees to reduce hours, or are struggling to pay rent, we know that they have been facing some seemingly impossible decisions recently, and we want them to know that their government is with them every step of the way.

For those business owners who have agonized over how to make their payroll, we have introduced the Canada emergency wage subsidy to support the payment of up to 75% of wages for the first $58,700 of an employee's earnings. This means up to $847 a week for workers who stay on the payroll. This would not only give workers certainty, but it would help keep our businesses in fighting form, ready to bounce back when we are through this. Let me reiterate: The whole point of this is to keep businesses intact because we know that when it is safe to do so, businesses that remain connected to their employees will be in a better position to lead our economic recovery.

Therefore, I am pleased that organizations like the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters all agree that the Canada emergency wage subsidy would help employers keep paying hundreds of thousands of their most valued employees during this difficult situation.

The government's support for small businesses certainly does not end there. We have doubled the maximum length of the work-sharing program, for example. This would provide income support to employees eligible for EI who agree to reduce their normal working hours because of developments beyond the control of their employers. We are doing all of this because we know that people are really the heart and soul of our businesses. We want employers to feel able to keep their families together. I know from my own experience how personal a small business really is.

At the same time, we know that there are plenty of expenses beyond payroll that still need to be covered. That is why we established the business credit availability program, which would help to finance small businesses that are struggling because of COVID-19. As part of this program, we have introduced the Canada emergency business account, which would provide up to $40,000 in loans, interest-free, to help with those short-term costs.

To further help businesses with cash flow, we have worked with the financial sector to open up billions of dollars more in lending capacity through financial institutions such as banks and credit unions, as well as through the Business Development Bank of Canada, Export Development Canada and Farm Credit Canada.

The program will help companies in all regions and in all sectors, all of our small businesses. Whether it is oil and gas, air transportation, or exports and tourism, we are going to help all of these businesses.

Speaking of tourism, Parks Canada is working with tourism entrepreneurs in national parks, historical sites and marine conservation areas to help minimize the impacts of COVID-19 on those industries. The decision has already been made to defer payments on commercial leases and licences of occupation without interest until September 2020. To help the people who feed us, Farm Credit Canada has received an additional $5 billion of support so it can help our farmers and our agri-food businesses. This assistance is both in the liquidity and to help keep people on the payroll.

We have also been introducing ways to defer other kinds of expenses that come up for businesses, to help keep their costs low. We are allowing businesses to defer income tax payments incurred between March and September 2020 until August 31, and we will defer GST and HST remittances and customs duty payments until June 30, 2020. To help small business owners and entrepreneurs who have lost their income, we are helping with the Canada emergency response benefit, giving them $2,000 a month. This will help those sole proprietors struggling with cash flow right now to bridge to better times.

Through these measures, we are offering new flexibility to different types of businesses dealing with the impact of COVID-19. Let me share a couple of examples. We are working with the owners of a wholesale fibre mill at the moment, one that has been operating for 15 years, providing good jobs for its six full-time employees: that is, until two weeks ago, when the mill had to temporarily close its doors due to lack of demand. It plans to gradually restart its operations within a week, and it will conduct the required maintenance during this partial shutdown. We are working with those mill owners so that they can bridge through with the Canada emergency business account to cover the overhead and carry out the required maintenance. We are going to work with the owners to bring back those six employees through the emergency wage subsidy. Given that both of the owners, who were on payroll, have not been taking a wage since the closing, we are helping them so they can access support through the CERB to help them bridge through this difficult period.

Another example I can give is a younger company: a two-year-old bakery with five employees plus the owner. This small business was on an upward trajectory before COVID-19, but now its retail sales have plummeted 50%. With the demand for bread remaining strong, however, the bakery has decided to work through its challenges. Through the emergency wage subsidy, it is going to keep the bakers employed just to make the bread. The bakery has applied for a loan through the business emergency account to bridge the payroll expenses, but also to set up an online ordering system. Like the mill owners, the bakery owner is going to choose to leave cash in the business and draw on the CERB to support it through this time.

There are thousands upon thousands of small businesses just like this bakery and this fibre mill that need help. Through all of these actions, we are trying to give businesses the breathing room so that they can keep their employees on payroll, pay the bills, cover the rent, and know that they will still be on their feet once this crisis has passed.

These decisions and changes will come as a result of direct consultations with businesses from coast to coast to coast. Through conference calls and Skype sessions over the last couple of weeks, our government has been listening and speaking with businesses all across the country, in every sector and in every region. Through these conversations, it has been heartening to hear from small business owners and entrepreneurs and from so many hard-working Canadians about the real difference that the emergency wage subsidy and all the other measures will make to their businesses and to their families: like the restaurant owners in Halifax who wrote in to say that they are going to be able to put their staff back on payroll and they will be ready to open when it is safe to do so, or the dentist here in Ottawa who turned his passion into a successful practice; now he is not seeing patients and is sending his staff home, but he will be able to keep paying the bills and keep paying his employees.

We will continue to listen to the very needs of small business owners and entrepreneurs. We will continue to explore ways to bring more relief, not only for our businesses but also for the hard-working critical workers across this country because we are going to get through this together.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to drill down on a question asked by the hon. member for Carleton. There is a lumber mill in my riding that is a division of a larger parent company. The larger parent company also deals in pulp, which has been very successful and going strong during this time, but the particular division located in my riding that provides lumber for decking and construction has seen a 60% to 80% drop in revenue. However, because it is a division of a parent company and cannot demonstrate a 30% drop in revenue, it has had to lay off 60 people and does not qualify for the wage subsidy.

What actions are the government going to take to ensure that divisions of larger companies that may not now qualify for these wage subsidies will qualify?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the whole point of the wage subsidy program is to save our businesses and keep their employees employed. We know that businesses are stronger when their employees are together with them and when that team is together. This wage subsidy is going to help these businesses prime for recovery, and we are going to continue to work with all businesses in Canada so they can support their employees through this very difficult period and can be primed for recovery at that time.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in times of crisis, not-for-profit organizations and charitable organizations are more vital. In my community of London, I have been participating in some of the local city-run phone calls that have taken place to try to bring forward a lot of the issues and struggles of people, and so I am hearing from them directly.

We certainly welcome the adjustment to the eligibility criterion that the Minister of Finance announced earlier this week, but we hope that the government will continue to work with these organizations to ensure that they can continue to pay their employees and provide the services so desperately needed by a growing number of the public.

Does the minister agree and support the idea that the wage subsidy should apply to charities like food banks that are seeing demands skyrocket while resources are decreasing?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, those very charities and not-for-profit organizations do such important work for our communities all across the country, and I am very pleased that the wage subsidy will indeed apply to both charities and not-for-profit organizations.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to the attention of the government a group of Canadians who are falling through the cracks.

Recently, Bell, Rogers and Telus announced the lifting of Internet data caps. This is a welcome announcements and will greatly help Canadians living in cities, but millions of Canadians who live in rural areas are not eligible for the lifting of these data caps. Many of these customers rely on products like Rogers' Rocket Hub or Bell's Turbo Hub, and their data caps have not been lifted. For a typical family of mom and dad who have to work from home, with two kids at home who have to do online learning through video, they could easily go through 250 gigabytes of data a month, incurring a $1,000-Internet bill.

Could the government comment on this situation and what steps it is taking to address it?

[Mary Ng, Liberal, Markham—Thornhill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, during this very important time when all of us are doing extraordinary things to plank the curve and to ensure that those very businesses and Canadians are supported through this period, we are working to make sure that these measures and many of our measures are helping those very Canadians in all our communities.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, once upon a time, an angry dog chased a cat. The cat ran up to the top of a tree, and so the cat lived happily thereafter. Right? Well, wrong, because, of course, the cat had to come down the tree at some point, and the dog was still waiting there. We are kind of in the same situation, as Dr. Fisman explained, an epidemiologist from whom I borrowed the analogy. We are all safely in our homes away from the COVID dog, but at some point, we will have to come out into the world if we are going to earn a living and pay our bills. That is ultimately the problem we will be faced with in the medium term.

Today we are debating measures, for example, that are at once both too exorbitant and too inadequate. How is that possible? Well, they are too exorbitant because they will drive our deficit to at least $186 billion this year, almost four times the previous record. That is only to pay for measures that take us to the end of the summer, barely a fiscal quarter into the year. That total does not include provincial deficits or the reduction in the book value of the Canada pension plan investments, which surely will drop given that markets are down by a third since the crisis began. That is why I will be sharing my time with the member for Kelowna who will comment on some solutions to that problem. He will also bring forward concerns from Central Okanagan.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, and I thank members of the House for their help, the reality is that we cannot as a nation, and no nation in fact, can go on borrowing this much this fast. We know this for a fact, because we already cannot borrow enough in international markets. The Bank of Canada has announced that it is going to print $5 billion a week, a quarter of a trillion dollars a year for almost the exclusive purpose of lending to governments. In other words, we are beginning to pay our bills with money that the Bank of Canada is literally fashioning out of thin air. This can only go on for so long as necessary, which these very legitimate measures in fact are.

At the same time, as big as these measures are, they are still not solving all of the problems. For example, there are businesses who will benefit from none of these proposals. For example, if one has a payroll of over $1 million, one cannot get the $40,000 emergency loan. If one's business is shut down by the government, it does not matter if one has access to a wage subsidy, because there is no work and, therefore, no wages to pay. In other words, one would still be paying a mortgage, property taxes and utilities, etc., but none of the $76 billion in measures for businesses will be effective whatsoever. I know of one such businessman who came here penniless as an immigrant from Italy 50 years ago and built a great business. At the beginning of March, he dropped off $800,000 worth of food that he distributes to restaurants. At the end of March, guess what happened? Those restaurants could not pay for any of the food because they were closed. In fact, much of it went bad. Well, he is not eligible for any of the benefits so far. His life savings are now gone.

No matter how much government spends, it cannot replace that. I am not saying this to disparage the measures before the House, but there is nothing that can replace the extraordinary power of our 20 million Canadian workers. There is no government program that can rain down enough money to compensate for their demobilization. There is nothing that can replace the entrepreneur that goes with heart and soul into their business every single day to employ their workers and serve their customers. No government program will ever replace any of that, and so we are still the cat on top of the tree. That is is true, and we have to hide there, because there is this dog at the bottom of the tree waiting for us when we get down, but we do need a plan to get down.

Health experts tell us that the only way to get rid of the COVID dog is to have a vaccination or a cure, but that might not happen for as long as a year and a half. I have already explained that we are going to go $186 billion into deficit simply to respond in one quarter of one year. We can do the math. This cannot go on, at least in its current state, for that length of time, and so we need an interim plan to get out of the tree safely and back to life so we can resupply our economy and produce the wealth that we continue to consume.

What is that interim plan? We can only study those places that have found ways to make it work. The exemplary cases are South Korea and Taiwan. What have they done? In South Korea they began very well-targeted testing to find out who has actually contracted the disease and, therefore, has been spreading it. Once those people are identified, they are quickly isolated and treated.

Here in Canada we have tested about 1% of the Canadian population. In six weeks that is far too slow. The good news is that an Ottawa company, Spartan Bioscience, is now signing agreements with governments at all levels, including the federal government, to the government's credit, to provide a coffee-cup-sized box that can conduct a test every half-hour. Dr. Paul Lem, the genius CEO of this company, has now signed an agreement to sell over $800,000 of these devices to the Government of Ontario. Each device can do 15 tests a day. That means that almost every single Ontarian could be tested once a day with this technology. Some employers in Taiwan, for example, are testing people as they come in every couple of days so they can quickly take people out of the work force if they are identified as having COVID-19. This kind of technology could provide us with the same nimble ability to identify the sick and take them out of circulation so they do not transmit the virus.

We can also prioritize the workers in hospitals and seniors homes, so that not just the workers, but anybody who goes into these facilities is instantly tested and given a result within 30 minutes. I know how important that is. I was tested for COVID-19. It took 12 days for the results to get back. When they did, I had a false positive. I had to call and speak to five different people at the hospital to find out whether I had contracted it. That is clearly too slow and clumsy.

There is no way we can broadly test our population unless the system speeds up. Spartan Bioscience has the technology and is deploying it rapidly with companies right across the country to help with its manufacturing. That will be absolutely necessary.

We need to slowly ramp up industries where human interaction is less frequent and where surfaces are less likely to be infected, and where anybody who comes into regular contact with others around them is regularly tested so that they do not become a host transmitter to another person.

These plans need to be in the developmental stage right now.

We also need to signal to Health Canada the need to approve treatments, testing and potentially vaccines and cures much more quickly than normal. There are far too many stories of treatments for children's cancer, for example, that are available south of the border but not here in Canada because Health Canada has been too slow. That kind of bureaucratic delay is, most times, tragic and now intolerable. We must clear the way for innovations and new solutions to hit the marketplace and deliver benefits to people so that we can tackle this urgent and unprecedented problem.

Finally, we will need a new and more competitive approach to finding a vaccine. Senior U.S. authorities testified before Congress that finding and deploying such a vaccine might take 18 months. There is no way we can wait that long; our economies would collapse and too many people would die in the meantime.

We need to break free from our traditional models of R and D and unleash the power of competition to put all of the best minds in pharmaceutical industry and science to work on solving this urgent problem. Then, and only then, can we stop this disease and free ourselves from the captivity that has ground our economies to a halt and led to so much human tragedy. That is the approach that will allow us to overcome the situation that we now find ourselves in and I, along with all members of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, under the leadership of our capable leader, offer ourselves to the government and to the nation in helping to bring about that solution.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member for Carleton.

At a press conference earlier, his leader said it was possible for Parliament to sit four days a week in person while adhering to public health directives.

However, one of the directives forbids travel between regions, to avoid spreading the virus. For instance, there are police checkpoints set up on roads between regions, including the bridges between Ottawa and Gatineau.

In the member from Carleton's opinion, does that mean a Parliament composed exclusively of people from the Ottawa area, including himself? Can he elaborate on that?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I see some members here who are not from Ottawa. This concern about only having members from Ottawa in Parliament is not valid. We can see that for ourselves.

I think it is a little strange for politicians to say that no, they cannot work in the House. They expect other people, working-class people, to work in stores and sell groceries. There are also truckers and other people who are still working. Their lives are as valuable as ours. I think we need to recognize that we are demanding that other people work.

The sacrifices we are making here are small sacrifices. We are lucky. We need to show our appreciation for the people we are asking to go to work in other parts of the country.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by thanking all the front-line workers in Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne who are working at Charles-Le Moyne Hospital, the police, all my constituents and also the staff of the MPs' offices in the greater Longueuil area. For the past four weeks, we have all been working together to help the people of Longueuil.

I would like to thank the member opposite for his speech. I am very happy to hear that he did, in fact, test negative. I am happy to hear that and I hope he and his family are staying safe.

With that, we were here four weeks ago. In four short weeks, we went from sitting right in this chamber to dealing with a pandemic that has killed many across Canada and many in my home province of Quebec.

I ask the member what his view is in terms of our working collaboratively with our provincial and territorial counterparts, as well as municipal counterparts, because it is going to take all of us to beat this pandemic. I would like to ask the member's opinion in that regard.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her good wishes. I would also like to add my thanks to my constituents who have risen up heroically to help one another, in particular, my case worker J-P Mitton and my other staff members, Jeremy Liedtke, Lucille Pakalnis, Craig Hilimoniuk and Manjit Athwal, who are all working to serve our constituents in the beautiful Carleton riding on an urgent basis, with much goodwill, I should say, from the senior public servants. This includes the public servants at large and the many staff members in the minister's office. I thank them for that. There is much goodwill back and forth.

I think the member is absolutely right. Now is a time when we, as opposition, will continue to fulfill our role to hold the government to account, not because we bid them any ill will but because we want to drive them to the maximum possible excellence. That is the role of Her Majesty's opposition, to point out every flaw so that the government will strive every day to be flawless. Now is a time when we must be flawless and we must expect even more from our leaders.

We know that any leader capable of confronting a crisis like this will not be so fragile as to be incapable of receiving criticism and, therefore, that criticism is done in the spirit of Her Majesty's loyal opposition. Our opposition, by its nature, is loyal. That is how our system is designed and we will fulfill our role in that regard in every day and every way.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, I would like to take a moment to thank all my colleagues for being here to take part in this important debate. I can think of many places we would rather be spending this Easter weekend. However, what we are doing here is extremely important, and I want to thank all my colleagues for being here.

When I gave the response to the original COVID-19 fiscal response by the government on behalf of my caucus, I indicated that the largest gap in the government's response was supports for small and medium-sized businesses. I also commented that whatever the government did, it must be fast, responsive to the need and must act as a temporary bridge until we can get back to normal. As we do not know what time normal will occur, I will focus today on the necessity for the government to be both fast and responsive.

It may seem like a formality to pass this bill to enable the wage subsidy program, but we must never forget this place solely exists to serve those who elect us. Ottawa, our country's capital, exists to serve as the home to provide critically needed federal services to Canadians, but the one thing we must bear in mind is that every single one of these services delivered by faithful servants of our public service is 100% paid for by the private sector. Without a thriving private sector, there can be no viable and effective public one.

Many British Columbian municipalities right now, which, by law, must balance their budgets, are having to lay off significant numbers of city staff and are curtailing services because revenues are drying up.

That is why our efforts here today are so critical. Our private sector, our entrepreneurs, especially our small and medium-size business owners, are depending on us to get this right. Canadians who depend on those employers for their paycheques are depending on us to get this right. We must not forget the critical importance of this.

Is this bill part of the solution? Yes it is, but we cannot overlook that when this government first announced a wage subsidy, it was at 10%, which was entirely insufficient to address a crisis of this magnitude. We are here today to fix that mistake. I know some will say that was the past and we are focused on the future, but keep in mind that many employers were waiting for that program. When they heard 10%, they knew that would not work, and they made decisions accordingly. People were laid off. Some business owners made the decision right then and there to pull the pin. Fortunately, the Liberal government, and I will credit them for this part, went from saying it thought 10% was enough to changing its messaging to an admission that it knew it needed to do more.

This brings us to today. When the government announced that it would make further changes for business owners who could afford to wait, they waited. Then they heard the revised announcement, this time with a 75% wage subsidy.

However, there were problems. One was having to demonstrate a loss from this time one year ago. Some of you will ask if I read the bill, because that is what we are here to change. I raise this point because when people heard they would not meet the former threshold, they, once again, made decisions. More staff were let go, leases abandoned and doors were closed, probably many permanently.

This is what this government has to understand. Every time they get this wrong, decisions are made by the Canadian public. By the time this government goes from saying it thinks this is enough, to yes, it knows it must do more, that delay results in small businesses shutting down and people being laid off.

That is the reality, and this brings me to what is perhaps the most important thing missing from this bill. There are no provisions to ensure that this assistance, which is so urgently needed, can get out faster. That is the government's biggest failure. Time is running out, and there is nothing in the bill about that.

As one small business owner recently shared with me, one does not throw out the life jackets six weeks after the ship has sunk, yet that is precisely what we are told this bill will do.

For five hours on Thursday morning, the Prime Minister blamed the official opposition for the delay. The Prime Minister was worried about that five-hour delay when he felt he could blame it on the official opposition. What about the six weeks or more delay in getting benefits? Who carries responsibility for that? Over those six weeks, how many more businesses will fold? How many more Canadians will be laid off? How many landlords will have a tenant default? Let us not forget landlords are also part of this.

I really do not want to be partisan here, but as the official opposition, we have suggested ideas that will put assistance payments out to businesses faster. However, as is always the case from the finance minister and the Prime Minister, they say that they think they have done enough, until they admit that they know they must do more.

That is really where we are today. In this case, we cannot afford to have any more Canadian business fail, because we all know the CERB is a temporary program financed by borrowed money. Yes, the wage subsidy program is designed to combat that, but because it will take six weeks or more to deliver, we may as well have Jeff Probst as finance minister, because businesses are caught in a real-world version of Survivor. Those who least need the assistance because they have the resources to wait those six weeks or more will survive to get the assistance.

Some will say that there is a guaranteed business loan program to bridge the gap. For the small business across the street from my Summerland constituency office that deals with the Summerland & District Credit Union, the Summerland & District Credit Union, like many small credit unions, is not on the finance minister's list of approved lenders for this program.

Some might say to switch to the big bank. Aside from the blatant unfairness to small credit unions, there are those who have tried, and they were told that only business accounts that existed prior to March 1 were eligible for the program. This also excludes many sole proprietors who often do not use business banking accounts because they use a personal one, and those accounts, much like many small credit unions, are not eligible.

Let us come back to small businesses in Summerland. Many of these small businesses employ people and pay taxes to Ottawa. Today, Ottawa is bringing in a program that excludes them. It is not designed to help them. What I mean by that is that the government is aware that the Summerland Credit Union, like many other credit unions, is not on the approved list.

Are credit unions like the ones in Summerland and elsewhere in the country not important? I would say they are.

This brings me back to the six-week waiting period for the business subsidy program. We know that those six weeks will leave many businesses behind that cannot afford to wait and they will close. I do not believe there is a member of Parliament in this room who doubts that. In fact, I know they are all working incredibly hard right now and I am certain they have probably heard from business owners who have shared with them that they need the government's assistance right now.

Even if the bill is a necessary step forward, we must remember that it was just as necessary two weeks ago and it was rolled out last week. We cannot allow our private sector to fail.

Our future depends upon it.

Before I close, I would like to add one final comment. There will come a day when we look back at the days that are now before us. People will ask if we did everything we could as quickly as we possibly could have done it. I will leave that comment for this place to ponder.

While I support the legislation, I must again add that if we cannot find a way to provide support in a more timely way, as the official opposition has suggested various ways of doing, we will be failing many Canadian small business owners who are now most in need. We must not forget them. We must not fail them.

In closing, I want to thank all hon. members for listening to my comments today. I want to say a special thanks to all the staff who made this day possible. Canadian democracy is stronger today because of all their efforts. I thank them.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Seniors]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for his speech.

I would like to start by taking this opportunity to thank everyone on the front lines in Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation. They are working hard to serve the public.

My colleague opposite is well aware that the COVID-19 crisis did not come with an instruction manual. Our government implemented measures as quickly as possible.

My colleague opposite also knows that we have been collaborating fully with all members of Parliament via electronic means, Internet communications and mail.

My colleague opposite also knows that the measures we are taking today are important and that we are implementing them as quickly as possible. Talking to our small businesses and taking care of them was important two weeks ago, it is important today, and it will be important next month.

Can my colleague opposite tell me if he thinks we all worked collaboratively to make the decision before us today?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate many of the things the member has said.

I want to start by thanking all of those in essential services in my riding who are on the front lines facing this fight against COVID-19. We appreciate them, as all leaders have said, and I want to add my voice to the member opposite's on that.

The member mentioned that there is no instruction booklet for this. However, in 2006, we did in fact have a report that outlined many of the issues that Canada would face as a country. We can argue about whether we should have prepared more, and I think we are going to have a lot of those debates moving forward, but I bet the Canadian public will want us to examine these questions more closely.

There is no instruction manual for the businesses that are having to make tough decisions, and they are making them regardless. I want to impress upon the government that many of the ministers here today are key decision-makers and must take action. We must realize that the support that Canadians needed three weeks ago will not suffice if we deliver it to them six months after. As I said, why throw out the life preservers when the ship has already sunk six weeks late? That is what I am concerned about, and I ask the government to move as quickly as possible.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, people certainly care about their municipal services. I am so grateful for the people who are working for the municipality in the city of London. They are doing an incredible job to make sure that necessary services continue to function, and I really want to thank them.

Unfortunately, the government is still not allowing municipalities to benefit from the wage subsidy. I would like to hear if the member supports extending the wage subsidy to municipalities.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will point out that the original legislation, Bill C-13, did not allow for that. Municipalities have it in their laws that they may not run a deficit, so it is unfortunate to see that in many cases they are making tough decisions. Those same tough decisions are being made by many small and medium-sized businesses right now, and not because of a law made by their provincial government but because of the law of economics.

There is zero cash flow coming in. Landlords are knocking on tenants' doors constantly asking when they are going to pay their rent. Employees are asking questions about whether or not they will have a job. Many small and medium-sized enterprises have said they will not be able to benefit from the Canada emergency bank account because they are below that threshold. It is extremely difficult for me as a member of Parliament to say, “I am sorry, but you have not been captured in this legislation.”

There are many who by design will not be captured in this legislation, and there will be many who will not be captured by accident. That is why it is so important that all members of Parliament convey their concerns, whether it be in this place, online or through written letters. I hope the Prime Minister and his cabinet are listening.

[Yves-François Blanchet, Bloc, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I should say that I will be sharing my time with my esteemed colleague from La Prairie, or else I will end up with more time.

I am a little concerned that the subject we are discussing this morning has not been treated with the seriousness it deserves. I am also a little concerned that the Liberals think it is really nice of the Bloc to collaborate but may not really be listening to us. I have seen totally unsatisfactory statements in the media about foreign workers, statements that are not even close to satisfactory.

When I was younger, I worked on a farm for years. That is how I paid my tuition. It was a different time, of course, and things have changed a lot. One thing has not changed, though. If I put myself in quarantine, as a colleague has done, I would have my own room in my house, my own bathroom, kitchen, stove and refrigerator. I would find the two weeks long, but I would have all the facilities I need. If there are 2, 3, 5 or 12 foreign workers at a farm in Quebec, there will not be 12 bathrooms, 12 kitchens, 12 fridges and 12 closed rooms. It is not true that if people stay six feet away from each other, they will be fine. It is not that simple. We are going to have to take this much more seriously.

Before community spread started, officials had been saying for a long time that travel abroad was the highest risk factor. Again, we want to bring in these workers. They are very important to the economy of Quebec and Canada and to our regions. We want them to come.

It has already been confirmed that some 2,500 people, mainly from Guatemala and Mexico, will be coming to work in Quebec. I want to reiterate for the benefit of the media and my colleagues, and it could not be clearer: These individuals will not have been tested for COVID-19 before boarding the plane, and they will not be quarantined for 14 days.

When they disembark, they will not be tested for COVID-19, and they will not be quarantined for 14 days. An organization that is not under the direction of public health or the government will put them on a bus and take them to drop-off locations that are not likely to be equipped to do it properly. This is no small matter.

Saying that everything will be okay is fine when it comes to putting pictures of rainbows in windows, but we cannot just say that everything will be okay when bringing thousands of people to the province who should be better monitored, in their own best interests. I want to emphasize that.

Imagine the risk. According to various scenarios, 30% to 70% of people in a given area will contract COVID-19. Being a foreign worker or being in Quebec or Canada does not make one immune. There is a risk that there will be cases of the virus.

We have a duty to minimize the risk of having cases of infection. The science has shown that quarantining and screening will not ensure that there are no cases, but it will reduce the likelihood. Even quarantining and screening combined is not a guarantee, but it does provide an acceptable probability. At the very least, I am sure that nice slogans are no remedy and will not prevent the spread of COVID-19. It will take concrete measures and action.

Imagine if there were a case on a farm somewhere. A foreign worker tests positive and has been in relatively close contact with others. Then two or three cases appear. The media will seize on that, of course, and fear and concern will spread faster than the disease. Public opinion will not be kind to these workers because of the general concern. Farms will end up paying the price and will be adversely affected. If the Canadian government does not take action in the meantime, it will be told that it did not do its job.

In light of all the resources that are being deployed, is it not our duty to ask what resources are necessary to prevent a proverbial flaw in the system from destroying some of the results being obtained by public health efforts? More needs to be done. Fine words will not do. We remain available to attend a video conference meeting in the very short term and work out the measures.

I want to go back to another topic briefly. This morning, I said in good faith and in all sincerity that I believe the government can easily, and should, support jobs in the oil industry to get them back to the level they were at before the crisis. This oil is being sold. People are using it. For those who think we get our oil from the moon or from Saudi Arabia, let me point out that Quebec gets its oil from western Canada and the western United States. Furthermore, we pay for it. We are not getting it for free or even getting a deal. We believe that jobs should be restored to the same level as before, but that any new project or expansion of energy production should be based on renewable energy. We believe that a lot of money would eventually have had to be invested in the renewable energy sector. However, that money has gone out much faster, for other reasons. We should take advantage of this time to invest in renewable energy. I would fully understand if the bulk of this money was used to mitigate the economic situation in Alberta, western Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador, which I realize are much harder hit than others.

Moving forward, we will have to plan to undertake an energy transition, particularly by supporting the regions of Canada that are hardest hit by this crisis, namely the oil-producing regions. I also think we should consider special programs to stimulate businesses across Quebec and Canada that are developing environmental technologies to offer alternatives to the existing system. There will be a huge global market for this, and it is the responsible thing to do. I could name 25. These are topics that we should continue to consider and debate, preferably in a virtual forum, in my opinion, only coming back here to vote.

There is something else we need to do, and it has not been talked about enough. I have not talked about it enough and I want to. Now is the time. We proposed a series of measures to help seniors, who are most vulnerable in this crisis, who suffer the most from the isolation and who may end up worst off financially at the end of this. We have already asked for increases to old age security and the guaranteed income supplement; improved access to high-speed Internet to combat isolation; lower drug prices; protections for pension plans at companies that are on the verge of crisis and risk being bought out by other companies that will not want to take on the pension plans; and full elimination of restrictions on individual retirement accounts. Right now, these plans are getting negative returns. I would ask that this series of measures be considered as soon as possible. Furthermore, these measures were developed in collaboration with the FADOQ and seniors' associations. Once again, we are making these suggestions in good faith. We hope that they will yield results, but there are still limits to our patience. We want quick, measurable and tangible results. That is what foreign workers, farms and seniors need right now.

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my question by teasing the leader of the Bloc Québécois a little. Since he blocked all of my colleagues on Twitter, I am going to ask him a question here in the House. He cannot block me. I do not really use Twitter.

Just two days ago, he gave the government a blank cheque to do its work. Today, he is complaining that the government is not doing everything it should. Why did he so quickly announce on Twitter that the Liberal Party could move forward and that there were no problems when there were in fact still problems?

I agree with him. How is it that the government is still unable to test people who are entering Canada?

[Yves-François Blanchet, Bloc, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when I was young, children used to do the same thing in the school yard. It is rather uncouth.

I certainly did not block his colleague, Mr. Paul-Hus, because he just said on Twitter that he agrees with what I said about foreign workers. If the Conservatives get their act together and work together, everything will be fine. Obviously, there are a few Conservative members that I did not block, but give me time and I might block them too. They often deserve it.

That being said, I will say again that we are here for reasons other than trying to anticipate the date and results of the next election.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I want to remind members that they must refer to other members by their riding name or title and not by their name. I think the member was referring to the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.

The hon. member for Outremont.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Small Business]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking all the health care workers at the CHU Sainte-Justine, the Jewish General Hospital and St. Mary's Hospital in my riding. I thank them for their incredible work.

I also want to thank all my constituents. There are many people back home who are volunteering for charities. Two in particular come to mind, Astrid Arumae and Vanessa Reid in Outremont and Mile-End, who are organizing teams of volunteers on the ground.

I would also like to thank my colleague from Beloeil—Chambly and all my Bloc Québécois colleagues for their work and their very constructive suggestions these past few weeks. I have a very simple question for my colleague from Beloeil—Chambly.

Do you think the billions of dollars we are investing to support Canadians and Quebeckers through the Canada emergency response benefit and the wage subsidy is a good investment?

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Once again, before we hear the response, I would like to remind hon. members to direct their questions through the Speaker and to not address one another.

The hon. member for Beloeil—Chambly.

[Yves-François Blanchet, Bloc, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I had no idea what my esteemed colleague's riding is called.

In answer to the question, there will always be a way to do a little more, to do a little better. There will always be room for improvement.

This situation reveals a number of things. One of the first is that those who think the government is an unnecessary nuisance and that it has no business intervening in the economy will have to think again. Without a powerful response by the governments of industrialized nations, the global economy would have collapsed by now.

The government makes decisions about how to do things. Wage subsidies were already being implemented around the world. We talked about it with the Minister of Finance, and it was implemented here. There is always room for improvement, but I think we have come up with something excellent that just needs a little tweaking.

I have seen other proposals related to the Canada emergency response benefit. I saw the NDP's proposal to make it universal. That might be a good policy someday, but I think we need to take more urgent measures in a crisis. In many cases, we have to lower our expectations and focus less on perfection so we can get a consensus that works in the short term.

For right now, this is clearly a very good solution.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the situation is critical. Everyone here knows it. We are facing an unprecedented crisis. We are literally making history. People will be talking about this for years to come, 10, 20, 30 years down the road. Maybe I will not do it myself, but when this crisis is talked about in 30 years and explained to future generations, they will have a hard time believing that the streets of Montreal were deserted, that the movie theatres and restaurants were empty because everything was closed, and that we all stayed home, self-isolating. Everyone made their own daily sacrifice.

Quebec has 12,292 cases of COVID-19, that silent, invisible killer. So far, there have been 289 deaths in Quebec. That number is not just a statistic. It represents 289 people whose families are grieving. That is important.

The situation is critical, and I am going to prove it in a simple way. Back when I was elected on October 21, if someone had told me that in six months, the House of Commons would be voting on a bill providing for a one-time expenditure of $73 billion and that the House would support it unanimously, I would never have believed them. Even the Conservatives are supporting it. It is unbelievable. No one would ever have believed it could happen. This goes to show just how unusual the situation is.

This situation is critical. This is no time to be partisan. That would be easy. The government makes decisions, reconsiders, adjusts. It is constantly looking for solutions. We can criticize, we can be partisan, and we can play the political game, but this is not the time for that. This is a time for vigilant collaboration, as my leader would say.

We have collaborated from the start, but that does not mean we went along with whatever they said. We put ideas forward and defended them. We discovered that, when facing an extreme emergency, the government listened. Had anyone told me on October 21 that the Liberals would listen to me, I would have said no way, but sometimes, when we come up with a good idea, the Liberals themselves acknowledge it.

This is a time for teamwork. We all have constituents to serve in our ridings. We need to think of their well-being. I want to thank the amazing team at my riding office, who are there to help when people call. We all have amazing teams on the ground. I am pleased to say that, yes, we have solutions and we have worked together.

Is the Bloc Québécois responsible for coming up with certain ideas? Obviously, yes, sometimes that is the case. However, the most important thing is ensuring the well-being of the population. That is where we are at. Now is not the time for the one-track neo-liberal thinking that we often hear and that claims that less government is better. That is not where we are at. As my leader said, the government is not necessarily a hindrance to the economy. If there were no government, we would have even bigger problems than we have today. The government has its uses.

I heard my colleague, the opposition leader, talking about the deficit, which will total approximately $180 billion. When faced with such a deficit, we need to work hard to find some good news, but at least we can say that this is not chronic or ongoing spending. At least there is that. It is not as bad as a $30-billion deficit with ongoing spending.

This is therefore not the time to reject everything the government is doing. Now is the time to say that the government has an important role to play and that it can resolve many problems. Now is not the time to look for a scapegoat. We could say that the government did not manage our borders properly in the beginning. We could have gotten into all that and brought that up. We are past that point.

Now is the time for solidarity, and when I talk about solidarity, I always think of our seniors. They are in a difficult situation. They are the ones who are suffering the most from our current situation.

That is why when I say we need to keep working, I mean we must not stop with this bill; further improvements can be made. The Bloc Québécois has already made some very clear suggestions to help seniors specifically.

When we talk about collaboration, that is what we mean. We make suggestions and hope they will be picked up. We must help our seniors; we must support them.

It is rare for me to quote the Prime Minister, but I want to take this opportunity because he said something that I thought was pretty good. He said we all stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.

Well done, Prime Minister. That is great, so now it is time to think of them and take care of them.

In addition, some might consider the issue of seasonal workers to be of secondary importance, but I certainly do not, and many of my colleagues share my concerns. Indeed, there are foreign workers in my riding.

Imagine: we are working hard, remaining isolated, making sacrifices to forgo certain activities and to stay away from each other. We are putting our everyday lives on hold. If, by some misfortune, some of these people who come here in good faith end up carrying the disease because their health was not checked and they infect people here, lives could be lost. More people will be in mourning. Think about it. It is serious. Some people might die because of some flaws in the government's response that we could correct immediately.

We are not looking for political gains. We are looking to act in solidarity, in furtherance of the common good and in service to the public. That is what we have to stand up for. In every one of our actions we have to think of the repercussions that could be catastrophic for some people and some families.

That is why the leader of the Bloc Québécois mentioned earlier that it is important that we sit down together and find solutions quickly so that the people coming to our region are coming because we need them to and without jeopardizing the health and safety of our own. Once again, we are appealing to the government.

In conclusion, yes, the Bloc Québécois will collaborate, but we will be vigilant. Much like I told my children that I was watching them, we are watching the government because it has a job to do. The government has a huge job ahead of it, and we are here to help, because the Bloc Québécois cares about the whole. The Bloc Québécois cares about public service, in addition to social conscience. What is good for Quebec in these tough times is certainly good for the Bloc Québécois.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from the Bloc Québécois, who, I must admit, is a formidable negotiator. He passionately defends his point of view, but he is also able to listen. I commend him for that. We were able to discuss, debate and come to a consensus for the good of all Quebeckers and Canadians.

If you had told me five months ago that I would be talking to my colleague on Saturday evening, Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening, and so on, I never would have believed you. Nevertheless, that is what we did, and we managed to agree on solutions together.

In the spirit of collaboration, I would like to ask my colleague if he is prepared to work with us and the other members of the House to explore whether a virtual Parliament or virtual sittings are possible.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I return the compliment.

Back home, when negotiations are going poorly, we like to say that negotiating is like trying to eat an apple though a tennis racket. Negotiating is hard, but we end up reaching an agreement because we are reasonable people living in exceptional circumstances.

As for the virtual Parliament, our leader had already suggested that idea, and you reacted very swiftly. We agree on that idea for the safety of the people around us. Rest assured that the Bloc Québécois will be your ally in implementing this measure.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I am glad to have an ally, but I would remind the member from La Prairie that he must address the Chair, not other members directly.

[Lianne Rood, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be here today representing my constituents in Lambton—Kent—Middlesex as we all work together here to help Canadians who need support right now.

I have many farmers in my riding who grow fresh produce. I know farmers do grow a lot in Quebec as well. The government has said that $5 billion has been put aside through FCC, but we all know that the $5 billion was a campaign promise made as part of the Liberals' election platform.

Would the member agree that the money should be restructured to provide direct support in response to this COVID-19 crisis? Also, does the member agree that our food safety and security is critical and that agriculture and food should be deemed an essential service, including making sure that CFIA inspectors, who are federally regulated, should continue working so that our food supply is protected?

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my area is known as the garden of Quebec, because it is probably one of the most beautiful places in the world. At the very least, it is home to the best black soil in Quebec.

When we talk about agriculture, an essential need and an economic activity that is often overlooked and neglected, we are obviously talking about an essential service. This is an asset that we need to protect. That much is obvious.

I am not the only person who lives in an agricultural area. We can all agree that agriculture is essential.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for La Prairie for his speech.

I would like to thank all Bloc Québécois members for their positive contribution today. We are in this together, and that moves me.

What does the member think of the current level of support for small businesses? That is one of my concerns. I would like his point of view on that problem.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her comment and her question.

While negotiating this bill, we wanted to make things better for small businesses. Many of them are in a very precarious position, which is why we asked the federal government to subsidize some of their fixed costs. With help, these businesses will not be forced to take out loans that would compromise their future and their ability to survive the crisis. If they were to take out such loans, growth and economic prosperity would be out of the question. For all these reasons, we asked the government for help, and we got subsidies to cover a portion of small businesses' fixed costs.

Quebec has always spent money on small businesses because they are economic engines for our communities and our country.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, before I get started, I would just like to inform the House that I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague, the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.

Like many members here in the House today, I am also hearing concerns and fears from constituents. Constituents are seeing businesses closing, they are being laid off and they are at home taking care of their families. They are also asking the government some serious questions. They need to know that we will quickly provide them with the help they so desperately need.

New Democrats support an increase in the wage subsidy. In fact, we have been calling for this for several weeks, but we think that it would be a wasted opportunity today to reconvene the House to deal with this issue without also dealing with the very serious gaps in the Canada emergency response benefit. I am happy that the unanimous consent motion starts to address our concerns.

I want my constituents in London to know that today, together, we can make sure that the programs and supports they need are provided. My staff and I have spoken with so many folks worried about how the government will keep them safe, housed, fed and employed. It is my responsibility to voice their concerns here in this place. My team has been working tirelessly to update our social media and connect with people via email and phone, getting them the information that we can. I am so grateful to my staff for that. My constituency office is normally busy at the best of times.

Many people are struggling to get the supports they need now and too many vulnerable people will not even qualify. There are holes in the system, and that is why New Democrats continue to advocate that the emergency benefits be made universal. Every week my office receives thousands of phone calls, emails and messages from people who need support, but the programs announced thus far, sadly, fall short of their needs.

I consistently hear from seniors and people with disabilities who are feeling the financial impact of COVID-19 through increased food cost, increased costs for the delivery of goods such as groceries and from being limited to 30 days of medications when they would normally receive 90 days. This means they need to spend three times the amount on dispensing fees, a cost that unstainable for those on a fixed income.

Many veterans organizations are scrambling, including London's Royal Canadian Air Force Association 427 Wing. This institution in London—Fanshawe is very dear to me. It not only serve veterans and provides a place for them to gather, but also is home to the Secrets of Radar and the Spirit of Flight museums. Even just the building it resides in is worth preserving as a major historical site in London. With the temporary closure due to COVID-19, it has seen a large drop in revenue. I fear that this temporary closure will not just be temporary and that we will lose this valuable place that supports so much history and so many veterans. These institutions need our help.

When it comes to COVID-19, the impact is felt by everyone, including students. While the 75% wage subsidy will keep more Canadians employed, many young Canadians are just trying to start their careers or are looking for summer jobs. With more than one million jobs lost since COVID-19 hit, many job prospects look grim. Students typically do not have savings stored away for a rainy day and many are graduating with crippling debt. With this pandemic, they have fewer opportunities to earn money to support themselves and pay back their loans. This is wrong and we need to do better. New Democrats are also calling on the federal government to permanently extend the waiver of interest charges on student loans. The government should not profit off the backs and the futures of our students. Not now and not ever.

This is a situation that no one could have predicted and prepared for, and I am sure that all members would agree with me that no one should lose their housing, which is a basic human right during this time. From a public health perspective, if Canadians are to follow directives from the health authorities to practise social distancing and self-isolation, they must have a home to quarantine in. Workers who are sick cannot feel pressured to continue working and risk infecting others for fear of losing their income and the roofs over their heads. Given the homelessness crisis that already exists in Canada, not only do we need to have measures in place to properly house everyone, we also must do everything we can to prevent an increase in the homeless population.

To protect renters, it is essential to put a nationwide moratorium on all evictions during the pandemic. As well, a temporary rent freeze period must also be imposed to protect renters from price gouging during this precarious time. My NDP colleagues and I are hearing from constituents who have just received a rent increase notice and are extremely distressed by the prospect of having to find alternative housing at this time.

Whether it is seniors, people with disabilities, veterans, students, workers or small-business owners, we see people who are looking for support but finding none. As it stands, it is estimated that 862,000 Canadians who need help will get nothing through employment insurance or the government's emergency response benefit. Every day last week, the Prime Minister and the government highlighted gaps in supports, but due to the work done here today, hopefully more Canadians will not fall through these cracks. However, the government needs to provide direct assistance to all Canadians immediately. The NDP is asking for the government to send a cheque of $2,000, with an additional $250 per child, to every Canadian immediately.

As many of my colleagues and I have mentioned in the House numerous times, 46% of Canadians are $200 or less away from financial insolvency. Many of those people live in my riding of London—Fanshawe. By providing direct assistance to them, we can make sure this crisis does not turn into a catastrophe.

For those who rely on the government programs and benefits offered, like the child care benefit, they first have to file their taxes to access this help. If they do not, they could face being cut off. This is happens when programs are means tested, and not universal. It often results in more bureaucracy, delays and people going without help. I am happy that the government announced it is moving the tax-filing deadline.

As I run a volunteer tax clinic from my constituency office, we see hundreds of people who need help to file their taxes. In my community, these tax clinics, sadly, have been closed, but we need to provide this vital service. I ask the government, on behalf of my constituents, to consider extending that deadline once again so that we can help as many people as possible to file their taxes. Simply put, a one-month extension is not enough.

Not only are people struggling, but many small businesses are facing their own crisis. I cannot imagine their heartbreak now when they have put everything into their business, the countless hours, time with family and their life savings into building their dream, and now see it in danger of disappearing. They are closing their doors but trying their hardest to keep paying their employees. With income declining and bills piling up, this situation is becoming impossible to maintain.

That is why we are happy the government listened to New Democrats, labour and business groups to strengthen this wage subsidy. We called for this before the House sat the last time, and I am grateful that some of the changes passed today would help get the supports flowing to small and medium-sized enterprises, charities, not-for-profits and non-profits. However, we need to address shortfalls in this legislation, such as removing the 30%-drop-in-revenue requirement for SMEs with fewer than 50 employees so that more of them could apply for the wage subsidy. We must also remove payroll limits on the $40,000 loan through the Canada emergency benefit account and offer $10,000 grants immediately to help a diverse group of enterprises and ensure a faster response time for businesses to receive supports.

I must say I am relieved to see the change that New Democrats pushed for, to ensure that when some local organizations pay meagre stipends to their volunteers, those people will still qualify for emergency benefit programs even if they lose their jobs.

New Democrats are ready to improve all benefits for all people and will keep working to make sure that companies cannot turn the money meant for workers into big CEO bonuses. That needs to be reflected in this legislation. There is always a worry that large corporations will use this crisis to their benefit, and that is why there is so much concern about the government's partnering with Amazon for the distribution of personal protective equipment and supplies purchased by the Canadian government. The announcement was made without consultation with postal workers, and the government's decision will put further strain on workers who are already poorly protected. Amazon uses numerous subcontractors throughout its delivery operations. Warehouse workers are also being put at risk. They are being pressured to continue working even when they get sick.

As the COVID-19 crisis continues, we owe our thanks to many front-line workers. Truck drivers, food production and grocery workers, pharmacy workers, EMS workers and the health care providers who are working in our hospitals and long-term facilities are heroes. These workers must have access to personal protective equipment and their worker's rights must be respected.

Also on the front lines are social workers who are working with their clients, those struggling with a lack of social and mental health supports and who now are facing increased anxieties. Social workers are also dealing with the reality of trying to maintain social distancing at work and in shelters. Many shelters in Canada are at over capacity at the best of times. How do people maintain social distancing when they do not have their own home? How do they maintain services at friendship and drop-in centres when they are supposed to be limiting contact? This crisis has further exposed many of the gaps in our system, especially for our most vulnerable. Food banks are also in desperate need of help. We are prepared to work with the government to make sure that those supports are in place to assist people in need.

In conclusion, we must find a way to make sure that everyone in Canada can get through these unprecedented times with enough money to pay the bills, a job to go back to and a safe place to live. We need to do it as quickly as possible. Let us join together to pass this bill to put the supports in place to lift each other up. Let us commit to helping one another to see us through this and move forward to strengthen our public services and social programs for everyone.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Small Business]

Mr. Speaker, I would particularly like to thank my colleague opposite for her remarks and concern about homelessness. That is exactly why the government doubled the amount of funding for the reaching home initiative. It is also why we have announced additional funding for women's shelters in order to support the most vulnerable in our country.

I would also like to thank the NDP for its support for the wage subsidy, which would help small and medium-sized enterprises from coast to coast. It would also help not-for-profits and charities.

Does my colleague agree that the government's proposal to extend the wage subsidy to not-for-profits and charities is a good idea?

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yes, we have supported that. It is something we were pushing for as well. There is a reality on the ground. I have heard it constantly from people who are doing that amazing work on the ground, the food banks, people who are helping people with disabilities, seniors, all of those organizations. I am so glad they will be able to take advantage of some of these supports.

However, I do not want to lose the opportunity for us to also help their clients, the most vulnerable among us in Canada, who are so reliant on those services, social programs, charities and not-for-profit organizations. I would like us to remember that as we move forward with changes to the CERB.

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, someone in my riding reached out to me this morning. Her husband drives a bus for the TTC in Toronto. He is an essential worker. She is a PSW at a nursing home in Bradford West Gwillimbury. There has been an outbreak in that nursing home and she has had to take her kids to her parents to be watched for the day, which is a big ask of her parents. She makes $550 a week. She called me and said that at the end of the day, she is putting the lives of her kids and her parents at risk for $550 a week.

I wonder if the member has some comment on the CERB with respect to that.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a cousin who is a PSW. I have certainly heard from a lot of them in my riding as well, and from local bus drivers with the London Transit Commission. They are really concerned that for some of their clients, those in wheelchairs and with disabilities, they have to get really close to them in order to strap them in. Last week one of our LTC drivers tested positive for COVID-19, so my thoughts are with him and his family.

I have had a lot of conversations with those front-line workers. Again, I am optimistic, after having heard from the Minister of Employment today, that those people who are applying for more of the services they need, more of these emergency benefits, as long as they are doing it in good faith, will not be penalized in any way and will receive the supports they need.

The New Democrats will always be pushing for a lot more to ensure that people are protected and receive the supports they need.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I believe my colleague spoke earlier about the difficulties being experienced by small and medium-sized businesses in his riding and across the country.

What can the federal government do to help them pay their rent since about 70% of them will likely be unable to pay their commercial rent on May 1?

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard from so many businesses that are really concerned. They do not want to take out a loan or be behind the eight ball more than they already are, so looking at rent freezes is absolutely vital to helping those small and medium-sized enterprises. In my riding and across the country these businesses provide, I think, 95% or at least over 90% of the jobs in our community. We have to support them. We have to go further.

I am very hopeful the government will continue to go forward with those propositions that the NDP is putting forward.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to emphasize the severity of the crisis that we are all experiencing. Neither we nor our parents have ever seen its like. The only comparable situation seems to be the Spanish flu, which hit just over a century ago.

Tens of thousands of people are getting sick, thousands of people are being hospitalized and many people are dying. Scientists are saying that we are relatively fortunate that the mortality rate of COVID-19 is not higher or it would be truly catastrophic. However, we are all going through this situation together and we have no idea when we will see the end of it.

Canada's Parliament has been suspended. When it is recalled, only 10% of members are in attendance. There is a lot of uncertainty about the future. People are struggling in all of our communities. They are suffering and having trouble paying their rent and buying groceries, as I just said. Some experience anxiety and a great deal of stress. Community groups are telling us that there has been a resurgence in mental health problems that may have been resolved in the past but that are coming back because of a lack of resources.

Given that everyone is being asked to stay home, there are also terrible situations of domestic violence, and women are the primary victims. Home is not always the safest place. On the contrary, it is sometimes the most dangerous.

This situation is forcing us to do things differently, to be creative, to think outside the box, as they say, and to work together in a way that we have never managed to do in the past.

This reminds me of something our former leader, the late Jack Layton, said. He used to always tell us we had to work together. Now it is becoming clear that we are capable of working together as parliamentarians.

I want to take 15 seconds to thank a number of government ministers for their availability, their quick responses, their willingness to listen and their openness to suggestions from the NDP, the Bloc Québécois, the Green Party and the Conservatives. Some of our proposals were accepted. Everyone wants to be constructive and come up with solutions to help people. Of course, we will always suggest doing more, but I have seen more open-mindedness and willingness to listen than ever before, and I wanted to emphasize that.

We have heard this a lot in the media over the past few weeks, but I too want to thank all our workers in the health care system: the doctors, nurses, orderlies, paramedics. They are doing tremendous work on the front lines. They are taking risks to save lives and take care of people. I tip my hat to them.

I also want to thank all the municipal employees, bus drivers, the people who keep our cities in operation. Thank you very much for a job well done. We need you in order to keep going.

Obviously, I want to thank the agricultural sector, the entire supply chain for our grocery stores and convenience stores. They are vital to allowing us to get through this crisis together.

I would like to take a step back and look at the crisis. We can already learn some lessons. Some observations can be made after just a few weeks, while our economy is in turmoil and many people are going through a tough time. I think the crisis reveals two things. First, inequality kills. Second, we need social programs and public services. We see it. After years of financial capitalism and neo-liberalism and austerity measures, people have become more vulnerable. In times of crisis such as this, the most vulnerable are more likely to fall ill, and they are also more likely to die.

Not so long ago, my colleague from London—Fanshawe noted that the inequalities in our society are such that half of all families are $200 away from insolvency. That means that our wealth redistribution mechanism is completely inadequate. Canada's big six banks made $46 billion in profits last year and there are still people who keep their money in tax havens.

People become vulnerable when we are not able to provide good care for people who have mental health or addiction problems. These people then end up homeless and on the street. When a crisis like this happens, they are the first to suffer. They are not on the streets because of chance or fate.

These people end up in these situations because of political and economic choices. This morning, an article in La Presse reported that COVID-19 had a higher than average mortality rate among African-American communities in the U.S. because these communities have long lived in poverty and in unsafe conditions that are associated with an increase in respiratory problems, heart problems and diabetes. People with these conditions who contract the virus are at higher risk of death. That is another example that poverty kills during a pandemic.

There is another example people will understand, and this is something the NDP tries to talk about as often as possible, because it is a major concern for some of our colleagues. I am talking about first nations, whose members are extremely vulnerable under these circumstances. They lack health and social services at the best of times. As the NDP leader said a little earlier today, when the nearest ventilator is a plane ride away, that puts people in a vulnerable position. When people do not have clean water, they cannot follow handwashing guidelines. When housing is a problem because homes in many indigenous communities are overcrowded, physical distancing guidelines just do not work. If the virus ever reaches those communities, the death toll could be staggering.

The reason things are so bad is that we have left them to fester for decades. We have a history of colonial treatment of first nations, and we need to recognize that. We must seize the opportunity afforded by this crisis to own that history and not make the same mistakes again.

I was talking earlier about the second thing that this crisis has made clear, and that is the importance of having a social safety net, universal social programs, a system that ensures that no one is left behind or falls through the cracks. I think we can get started on that. Of course we have to get through this crisis. We need to take care of people and find masks, gloves and everything else, but we have to come to the conclusion that a guaranteed income supplement might not be such a bad idea. It might helps us absorb the costs collectively when a crisis occurs, whether it is a social, health or economic crisis or even all three at once, as is currently the case.

We need to have a robust social safety net and universal social programs, and there must be oversight of the care provided, especially to seniors. In Quebec and Canada we are very proud to have a public and universal health care system. Imagine the situation for Americans. People without any insurance cannot go to the hospital because they are afraid of getting an exorbitant bill. We would be in a much tougher situation today.

Nevertheless, the private sector has been left to carve out its own leeway and space with regard to delivering certain services. Another example is very revealing. It is a shocking story that came out this morning about a private long-term care home in Dorval. Because of low wages and poor working conditions, the employees simply stopped going to work. Dozens of elderly residents were totally abandoned. The public health directorate of Montreal had to take over running the care home after residents suffered agonizing ordeals. That is the consequence of the political decision to let the private sector take over certain health care services. Maybe that should not even be the case, and that is something we should think about. Now is the perfect time to think about it, in fact. Residents who died were left in their beds, while others lay on the floor where they had fallen, dehydrated and starving. They had not received care or services in days. We need to collectively ensure that this never happens again.

People are saying that they cannot wait until things get back to normal. As progressives, we say that going back to normal is not the solution, because normality was part of the problem. We need to seize this opportunity to fundamentally change things in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of neo-liberal austerity and public service cutbacks. We need to ensure that the people providing services get good working conditions. Forget about going back to normal. We can do better. Everything will be okay, and we are going to do better.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Seniors]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his speech. I think he delivered an historic speech.

From the very beginning, we have committed to full collaboration. We have talked about the before, during and after.

Would my colleague opposite agree that, when it comes time for the “after”, we will need to continue this strong collaboration among all parties in the House of Commons?

We will need it to get through this crisis, to be better and to prepare properly for the future.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question.

I was wondering whether what he was really asking was that I turn down the volume during question period from now on.

Individually and collectively, we need to learn from this crisis in order to make better decisions for what happens next. There are good ideas coming from all political parties. We have to be able to recognize that.

What matters most is that we can take care of Canadians and ensure prosperity. We need to do things differently to avoid repeating past mistakes.

I very much appreciated my colleague's comments.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his fine, heartfelt speech.

He talked about inequality. He also referred to something that I see as a problem and that is the huge profits that banks are making and the use of tax havens. In order to reduce inequality during this crisis, the government is going to inject huge amounts of cash into the banking system. It might even buy troubled assets to help the banks.

Does my colleague believe that, in return, the big banks should contribute by putting an end to their lawful use of tax havens to avoid paying taxes in Canada?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent suggestion.

Sometimes there is a completely indecent accrual of profit and capital, while there are people living in poverty who do not have the bare minimum they need to survive.

It is a give and take. If the government helps banks to prevent too much bankruptcy and job loss, then I think that the banks should stop coming up with ways to send their profits and their CEOs' money to tax havens so that they do not have to pay taxes in Canada. We need that money to pay for the social safety net that we were talking about earlier.

I think that any assistance, particularly for large industries like that one and the oil and gas industry, should come with conditions so that we all come out on top in the end.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. I completely agree with him.

Perhaps he will agree with me that neo-liberalism's time has passed.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that statement carries a lot of historic weight.

I hope that we will have the wisdom to come to the same conclusion. Taking an exclusively neo-liberal approach erodes a society, a community.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-14, A second Act respecting certain measures in response to COVID-19, be read the second time and referred to a committee of the whole.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, what a wonderful note on which to rise to speak today, to see the paragraph that I was initially so pleased to see in the unanimous consent motion, and the government will implement measures without delay. It is much improved through our work unanimously. I want to thank the NDP for taking the lead in making sure that benefits are going to people where there had been gaps. Clearly the Minister of Employment and the Minister of Finance have been working hard to try to address gaps.

Before I get too far into discussing what we have done here today and what we have been doing as parliamentarians, I do want to pause and on behalf of the Green Party of Canada, thank all of the essential workers: the front-line workers, particularly those in the health care professions, including our doctors, our nurses, our first responders and our personal care workers who go into senior homes. There are so many people right now without whom we could not self-isolate in safety. We could not practise our social distancing without truck drivers who make sure there is food on the shelves, and the workers in our grocery stores who make sure that the shelves are stocked. There are efforts to stop hoarding and make sure that we look out for each other.

Essential workers in this context include some people that we often do not stop to celebrate. They tend to be the lower-paid workers. In this moment, I just want to express on behalf of all of us again, our deep gratitude. It is particularly concerning that we are not ensuring that these people are protected. PPE, personal protective equipment, which is now on the tip of our tongues, was not something we talked about.

We should have learned lessons from SARS. I worked with Sheela Basrur and I love her. The work on SARS and the commissions at the time warned us that we would need to be ready for another pandemic and that we should not let these supplies run low. I am not going to play a blame game. It is human nature. The farther we got away from the SARS pandemic, the less we went to check how much was stored on our shelves. Do we have enough N95 masks? Do we have enough gowns and gloves? Are we protecting our front-line workers enough?

We still have a crisis. There are still places, people, hospitals and senior care homes that are crying out for this protective equipment. They are crying out as we gather here. I thank them for what they are doing. We do it every day at home. I go out on my balcony on Second Street in Sidney. I know my neighbours are at home because all around me I can hear them banging on pots and pans. The streets of my community, Sidney by the Sea, are empty, but at 7 p.m., there are people in the marina blowing their boat horns and banging their pots and pans. I just want to thank all the health care workers across Canada.

I also want to thank my caucus members. I would split my time if I could, but the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith is in Nanaimo—Ladysmith and the hon. member for Fredericton is in Fredericton. She is still self-isolating from her last trip to Ottawa and New Brunswick rules require that she stay put. The hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith was not able to make the trip. I am enormously grateful to be here.

While I am expressing gratitude, I want to thank the hon. Minister of Employment for giving me a lift. I also have to thank the leader of the official opposition, because I think it was more or less his plane. It is a new term for me: We “plane-pooled”. We went from Fredericton to Victoria to Regina, which is not a regularly scheduled thing.

I was glad that Jill and the kids could come along too. It was a family event as we made our way here. I am so grateful. I booked all my commercial flights and I have to say I feel so privileged and so grateful. It was a special feeling to know a government plane was going to pick me up. I did not expect it, but I have to say I was semi-terrified about the transits I was going to have to make through four airports. I have a lot of reasons for being grateful.

With that, I want to turn to the legislation. We are working hard as MPs. I know every single member of government is working hard, and I include in that the civil servants.

I am used to working seven days a week, but I am not used to getting an email back from staff at the civil servant level from the western diversification office when I write about a routine grant that has a 30-day window. It is because people are working at home, civil servants too, and I thank them. I know they are working Saturdays and Sundays, because they answer my emails on Saturdays and Sundays. This is an extraordinary time.

I am not sure how others in this place will feel about it, but I want to say publicly that I think we are eventually going to need the Emergencies Act. I know that the premiers said no, but I think we are eventually going to wish we had had it in place.

The public welfare portion of the Emergencies Act is not the War Measures Act of old. I read it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and thought that it is what legislation to deal with an emergency looks like when it is not written by people in the middle of an emergency. It is thoughtful: It does not suspend our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it does not send the army in anywhere and it respects provincial jurisdiction and the use of provincial police forces.

I will give members one example that is in my heart right now.

In the community I represent, Saanich—Gulf Islands, the Gulf Islands are being inundated with visitors who are coming in by ferry, even though BC Ferries has told people not to come unless their trip is essential. These small communities are really feeling it. The grocery store shelves empty out with people from urban areas coming to visit. I know it is happening in cottage country. I am sure the Muskokas are experiencing the same thing, with people getting out of the city and going to their cottage. However, the health care systems and services in these more remote rural communities cannot handle the kind of inundation of people that is happening now.

I want to flag for my colleagues here the way the Emergencies Act works. It can be invoked; it does not need new legislation. It can be invoked by Governor in Council, but when Parliament is in recess, it must be recalled within seven days to discuss and debate it.

In an ideal world, just as a precaution, I would have liked us to discuss and debate it today while we are here so that we have it in our back pocket if we need it. I am not certain that at some point in the coming weeks we will not wish we had it to make sure that we had a national priority system for the distribution of ventilators and N95 masks, or that we did not have the capacity to say that we need to stop people from going into these smaller communities that cannot handle an influx of population right now.

This brings me to the bill we have in front of us. I think it is time to think about transformational change. The hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie was pointing this out a moment ago. We are doing things now in real time so fast that those of us who have been parliamentarians for a while would not have been able to imagine that government could roll out these programs so fast. It is an extraordinary tribute to hard work, thinking outside the box and being liberated from some constraints, because the pandemic of COVID-19 is a bigger threat than anything we have faced in the short term.

I make the parenthetical comment that the climate crisis is still a larger threat to human civilization than this pandemic, but this has caused civil servants, ministers and opposition members to think in different ways. This has caused our Conservative friends, like the member for Carleton on conference calls we have had, to be the voice that asks, “What about the small credit unions? What about helping the small credit unions, not just the big ones?” I thought to myself that we should not ever make assumptions about people. I did not think that was something the member for Carleton would say, but sure enough, he did. There is concern for all of us, and the basic needs of all have risen to the top. As I said earlier today, this experience has shown us that life is more important than money.

That is a truly fundamental lesson in a culture that normally protects the economy above all else.

Now we know that we have to protect our economy and rebuild it, but not at the cost of human lives. We know what is important.

In looking at this, I hope that we can agree at some point that a guaranteed livable income is what the country needs. As other members have mentioned, in normal times not everybody can pay their bills. In normal times, kids who should be able to go to university cannot afford it. In normal times, too many people fall between the cracks. We can fix those cracks. We can fix those gaps.

The Green Party of Canada has, way before I was involved with it, stood for a guaranteed living income.

We need a guaranteed minimum income to allow everyone to live sustainably.

I hope we will come back to this. For now we have Bill C-13. It went quite far toward looking at gaps, but we recognize that they remained. That is why we are back for Bill C-14.

I am pleased to see the wage subsidy increased to 75%. I am pleased to see the tweaking around definitions of what is an eligible employee to make sure that we do not accidentally create a one-day mistake. I am pleased to see the changes around eligible entities and, of course, around the qualifying periods. This makes the whole program much more accessible to more companies and employers that are able to give that wage subsidy.

However, it does not deal with every situation, not even still. If one thing is shown by trying to come up with legislation to meet every circumstance and fill every gap the way we are doing it, it is that one size will not fit all.

This is true even when talking about senior homes. I received an email today from Meadowlane, a seniors home on Salt Spring Island. It is run as an independent living facility, so it is not within the health authorities. It has additional costs but is a not-for-profit society, so how does it handle these additional costs? It does not have deep pockets. Obviously costs are going up. The workers are stretched. The home needs to buy more masks and more gowns, and it does not have a revenue deduction because people are still in the home. Not every circumstance fits yet to our best efforts in this place.

Similarly, I have talked to venture capital businesses. They have the venture capital and are on the verge of a breakthrough, but the BDC venture capital model is not working for them because their venture capital comes from firms that are not in the recognized group within the BDC plan. We need some flexibility there too. We need to be able to say to businesses that if they are on the verge of really taking off, we should not be restricting where they get their money.

Speaking of money, I want to pick up on a point made by the hon. member for Burnaby South earlier today, which is about the banks. The Minister of Finance has clearly been exerting maximum diplomacy on the banks, getting them to say that they will let people have a longer time to pay their mortgages, but the six big banks are misusing his good faith. I will put it that way. They are not so profitable for nothing. Last year's profit of the six big banks in Canada came to $46 billion. It is 10 years in a row now that they have made more money year over year, and we can see why. They are saying to people that they do not have to pay their mortgage for a while, but when they pay it the banks are going to get them.

This is not team Canada. This is not the spirit we want to see. I think it is about time that the large banks were taxed at a higher level. We tax our big banks less than other countries in the G7 do. Why? I guess we like them. I am not sure they like us.

I would love to see the Minister of Finance convene by conference call all of the country's credit unions and ask them what they are capable of doing. What would they be able to do to help the small businesses in this country avoid bankruptcy? What would they be able to do to get them money up front that was not a loan so they could pay their rent and not go under due to the fixed costs of business?

I grew up in my family business as a kid. Through my twenties I waitressed and cooked in my family restaurant on the Cabot Trail, which was a seasonal business. I think about my parents and if this had hit us then. I do not know what we would have done. We would have had 35 seasonal employees that we could not hire. We would have been wondering if we should open or not and what the heck to do with all the things we had to pay for no matter what. That is what I am hearing from businesses in my riding now.

Someone emailed me the other day, and the email just about broke my heart. I will not give any biographical details, but the writer described himself as a 250-pound man covered in tattoos. He said that morning he went to the bathroom and shut the door so his kids would not hear him crying. He has businesses that cannot open right now and he has no way to pay the rent on them. Despite all of his life savings, he is already indebted. Small businesses are going to need more than what we have here.

I am encouraged because the unanimous consent motion does speak to short-term support measures for Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises that will be partially non-refundable. We have to work on how much is “partially”. We have to do way more. If we want to get out of this, which we do, as a country with businesses that run in the black, we cannot let them go into deeper debt. They will not go into deeper debt; I know they will not. They are already telling me that if they take out a $40,000 loan without interest, they will not be able to pay it back and will then go bankrupt later. This is a real concern and is coming from the heart.

There are other issues that matter to us across this country. We know one size does not fit all in any category.

Before my time is elapsed, I want to thank everyone in the government and the provincial governments and particularly our public health officers, from Dr. Theresa Tam to Dr. Bonnie Henry in B.C. to, back again across this country, Dr. Strang in Nova Scotia. These guys are now our daily friends on TV. We see them more than we see those we used to watch on TV. We now know who we can look to for advice. We can look to those public civil servants whose job is public health. I am enormously grateful to all of them, because as every Canadian has witnessed, they are also working around the clock.

It is now clear that these are extraordinary circumstances. We must find solutions together. We must continue to work together. As members of Parliament, we must find ways to work virtually. I do not know how that will be possible, but I know that things that once seemed impossible are possible.

I mentioned earlier that Doug Ford says the Deputy Prime Minister is his therapist. This kind of thing would not have been considered possible a short time ago. We need to work together.

On behalf of the Green Party caucus, I give my word that we will do whatever we can. We have been forwarding advice, complaints, ideas and worries to a listening ear, and for that we are grateful. In this crisis, which does not at this point have a clear end in sight, we need to be able to say to every one of our constituents and to every Canadian, permanent resident and foreign student, for whom I am very worried, that if they are living in Canada we have their backs. If they feel that no one is there for them right now, they should not worry. I want them to reach out to us and tell us what they need. We will fight for them.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member, my fellow British Columbian, for her presentation.

She mentioned at the front end of her speech that she supports having the Emergencies Act activated. Again, that has never been done. Usually it was only done when a province or territory was unable or unwilling to deal with a crisis.

From speaking to most of my constituents, I think they would all say that in British Columbia things are happening well. In fact, maybe some people would say that the gaps right now are being addressed by the federal government in the way it has handled our borders, particularly at the airports. Both Premier Kenney and Premier Horgan have sent their officials because they do not trust that the federal government has done its job. In fact, maybe they would like a reverse Emergencies Act: Rather than the federal government taking over a provincial situation, the provincial government could take over a federal situation.

Could the member please tell us where these gaps are that she sees in British Columbia?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the example I just gave, and it is top of the news around the clock at home in B.C. right now, is the influx of people on B.C. ferries. Is that a provincial issue? Should John Horgan have sent the RCMP to stop people from boarding ferries? It seems to us that there are still gaps. The Emergencies Act, if nothing else, is about making sure that gaps are dealt with, and that there is a national set of directives. Right now, we have different provincial directives, depending on where one lives, of when to self-isolate or whether to wear a mask. I do not want to make too much of it, because I think we are pulling together quite well, but in this instance the Salt Spring Island Harbour Authority reached out to me and said that they want to be able to say that they are not taking any tourist vessels in Ganges Harbour this weekend, and asked where they can get the authorities to do that. Those should be federal, because it is Transport Canada, but it is hard to find the rules and the regulations.

In British Columbia right now, I also do not think the work camps should be open for Site C or for Coastal natural gas. There are COVID-19 cases coming out of those work camps, and that exemption has been allowed by the provincial government.

[Chrystia Freeland, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands has spoken about the really unprecedented collaboration among all members of this House in addressing the challenge that all Canadians face. I want to take this opportunity to thank her colleague, the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, for his support in our work with the United States. He pointed out directly to me the essential role that a pulp mill in his riding plays in supplying the U.S. medical equipment supply chain. Thanks to him, I got in touch with the CEO of that pulp mill, Levi Sampson, and that conversation proved to be very helpful in our conversations with our American neighbours.

I thank the Greens, and particularly the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith for being so involved and so helpful.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say what a distinct it honour it is, and I was going to mention it, but I thought it was a private conversation I had with the Deputy Prime Minister, and I was not sure I should mention the role of the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith. My favourite thing about his alert to the government that the Harmac mill in Nanaimo makes essential parts of the 3M masks that were, at that time, creating a conflict between the United States and Canada, was the subject line, which I loved.

Forgive me for sharing that the memo that the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith sent the Deputy Prime Minister was titled “fun fact”.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

I have a specific question for her. If a business wants to receive the emergency wage subsidy, it will have to prove a drop in revenue. Community groups, non-profit organizations and food banks may have a hard time proving a drop in revenue. Food banks may even have an increase in revenue, since more people want to donate and contribute.

Does my colleague think that the government should make exceptions for community groups, in particular food banks, with respect to the drop in revenue?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I completely agree with my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.

Our country is wealthy and industrialized. We must eliminate poverty once and for all, and this truly is possible.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, to my colleague, from one end of the country to another, let me perhaps provide some help. I too have ferries in New Brunswick Southwest. Last Sunday the federal government extended the Quarantine Act. It is now actually a federal regulation that gives ferry owner-operators the ability to restrict people who take the ferries to get across this country; that power is already there.

On that note, a concern I have about the Emergencies Act is that already municipal workers, ferry workers and provincial workers have power that the federal government has granted. I do not believe we should rush to enact the Emergencies Act when powers already exist and they just are not being utilized, perhaps because they are not known. There is the ability to restrict people travelling on ferries today, thanks to the work the federal government has done.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that this discussion we have just had will make it to the news in British Columbia. The question will then go to officials at B.C. Ferries as to why they are not referencing the Quarantine Act to ensure that people who are not on essential business are not travelling to the Gulf Islands or elsewhere throughout B.C. I know that Haida Gwaii has been very clear that it does not want visitors coming to its territories.

We need to make sure that the tools that are available are well known to all.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands for her fine speech.

We are experiencing an unprecedented public health crisis accompanied by a terrible economic crisis. We are working hard to overcome it as fast as possible.

The economist Schumpeter spoke of “creative destruction”, and his idea has filtered through in economic circles. It is the idea that whenever a crisis occurs, the end of the crisis can provide an opportunity to shape the economy of the future.

Does my colleague believe that on the day we exit this crisis, we will have the opportunity to accelerate the shift to a green economy?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Joliette. I fully agree with him.

Making a real start on a fundamental shift to a green economy is not only possible, but essential. It is possible because after this pandemic and the current public health crisis end, there will still be a climate crisis.

We need to take action to save our economy and invest in renewable energy and green technologies in order to develop a forward-looking economy.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was so happy to hear the member across the way talk about a universal basic income. I am hoping as we move forward that is something we can work for together. Those front-line workers we talk about, the people working in the grocery stores stocking shelves and the people working at the pharmacies are often paid minimum wage.

Does the member agree that in the future something we could work on as well is that the federal government implement a liveable federal minimum wage?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an easy answer. Yes, of course. It was in our platform as Greens. Our belief in that goes way back. We do not like to use the term “universal basic income” because we want to make sure that when we go to a guaranteed liveable income, it is actually at a level where people can live on it but know that they can earn more and then the taxation rate will kick in.

Canada as a whole will be stronger and more resilient when we actually have a society where nobody falls through the cracks.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It being 6 p.m., pursuant to order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and to put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on the motion.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

On division.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I declare the motion carried.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, deemed considered in committee of the whole, deemed reported without amendment, deemed concurred in at report stage on division, deemed read a third time and passed on division)

[The Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Thank you everyone.

Today has been an exceptional day in the midst of exceptional times. A few weeks ago, the Deputy Speaker, the hon. member for Simcoe North and the Assistant Deputy Speaker, the hon. member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, presided over the chamber as a small group of members gathered to pass emergency legislation that would help Canadians cope with some of the devastating effects of the global pandemic that has hit this country.

Today I have had the privilege of being here with you, hon. members and employees. I want to thank you, personally and on behalf of our parliamentary colleagues, for being here and for your efforts to serve Canadians.

We were able to carry out our work today because of the support of all these essential employees of the House administration, the Library of Parliament and the Parliamentary Protective Service. We are grateful for your help under these challenging circumstances.

On behalf of my colleagues, I would also like to express my gratitude to health care workers and everyone who works to keep our essential structures running smoothly.

Hon. colleagues, keep safe, keep well, and we will get through this together.

I want to wish all of you a happy Easter and a happy Passover. Have a great weekend.

Thank you all very much.

Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until Monday, April 20, 2020, at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Orders 28(2) and 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:04 p.m.)