Thank you, Chair.
Good afternoon, everybody. Please, everyone stay safe. Let's all get through this in due time.
I want to thank all four presenters for their feedback. We had the Caledon Institute's description of the immediacy of response, simplified administrative activity and eligibility, and the Vanier Institute's as well, and to Mr. Mintz, with whom I've chatted before, thank you for all the work you're doing in Alberta and advocating for small businesses across the country.
I want to make a couple of quick points before I ask a question.
First of all, I have to say thank you to the 7,000 CRA employees who have volunteered to help deliver services to Canadians in the coming days via the Canada emergency response benefit, and then in delivering the Canada emergency wage subsidy.
For everybody on the line, we have a direct deposit route, so if you have a My Account or My Business Account with CRA, once you put your application in, you'll receive your funds directly from CRA within three days. The waiting time is very short.
In fact, as they are coming, I'd like to point out that the GST top-up, which was scheduled for May, is coming next week, so $5.5 billion will be delivered to Canadians from coast to coast to coast. I think that over 15 million Canadians called, or 11 or 12 million families. We can get the exact number, but it's around that. Resources are being delivered, and for families afterward we'll get the Canada child benefit out as well. A lot of good things are happening.
Mr. Mintz, as you well know, the number that was put out by Finance within the last 36 hours is $570 billion in both direct and indirect support to the economy. I think one thing we have done really well on the wage subsidy is to have no cap on it. There is no limit on the subsidy amount for an eligible claim. If you are a manufacturing company with two or three hundred employees and business is down, you're going to able to apply.
Look at the CERB versus what they've done in the United States or other jurisdictions. It is $2,000 a month in your pocket within three days if you have direct deposit. That is there to help Canadians.
Now I'd like to ask a question of the Caledon Institute. With these measures that have been taken, what else do you think we need to do? This is a discussion we're having from coast to coast to coast. We're all working together—the provinces, regions, municipalities and the federal government. What else would you like to see? I think we're doing quite a bit.