Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank my colleague for Cape Breton—Canso for his many texts, phone calls and emails. He represents his area and the fishers in that area very well. A lot of what he fed to us and our department was able to form part of what we announced last week. I want to thank him for his advocacy.
In rural coastal communities, the fishery is sometimes the only thing we have for our economic driver. That is why it was so important for us to support our harvesters. Last week, we announced close to half a billion dollars going to the fish harvester benefit, which will allow harvesters and sharespersons to collect $847 a week for up to 12 weeks in this very difficult time. We also announced the fish harvester grant, which is a $10,000 grant to harvesters that will be able to help with their fixed costs. Making the change in the employment insurance is going to be a huge win for our fishers. They are going to be able to base their EI claims on last year's season, and that is going to be extremely helpful, because this year we're not really sure what's going to happen.
We will continue to work with our harvesters and industry partners to make sure that we're addressing their needs as we go forward. We know that these are very challenging times and we will make sure that we are there for our fishing sector.