First of all, thank you for the question.
Happily, I can say my family is doing well. Like other families, we're sequestered at home. That's what I hope all Canadians are doing right now to protect themselves and their families.
We have been working hard over the course of the last number of weeks dealing with what I think we all recognize is an absolutely unprecedented situation. We believe that the number of measures we've put in place are going to support people in all categories who are experiencing a significant challenge as a result of COVID-19. The backdrop to our actions is that the very first thing we wanted to get out was the help for people, the 5.7 million Canadians out of the 19 million employed Canadians who are not attached to an employer. That's why the Canada emergency response benefit, that $500 a week for 16 weeks, was so important to get going rapidly.
We also recognized that the 10% wage subsidy was really to help all small businesses, not related to revenue, but all businesses that are of 18 employees or under, because they're going to experience challenges.
What became clear to us is that we needed to also find a way to make sure that employers could keep their relationship with their employees. That's the reason we moved forward with the 75% wage subsidy. The idea there is that it's 75% of pre-crisis earnings, up to $847.
We haven't lost any time in doing this. We've moved forward, obviously using the Canada Revenue Agency for the Canada emergency response benefit. We believe that's the most efficient way to get that benefit out. We also believe it's the most important and efficient way—