It sounds like this is exactly what the program was designed for. It was to help businesses, which would have laid their employees off, to hire them back. Well, in a sense hire them back—the federal government is paying the payroll—but it's connected to the companies for which they are working. As we try to turn the economy back on when the COVID threat passes, however long that takes, we need to try to maintain worker-employer relationships if we can. One of the challenges with so many people applying for the CERB, instead of being scooped up by the wage subsidy program, is that these folks now are disconnected from their previous employment places. If those small businesses want to restart rapidly when non-essential businesses are allowed to reopen, those workers may not be available to work there. One of the benefits of a wage subsidy program is that it maintains the relationship between the employer and the employee.
If those workers are fully working for that company, and the employer decides not to top up the 25%, that's where I become somewhat concerned that employees might see a threat of a 25% wage cut in order to stay employed or be unemployed. I think that's where it would help if the federal government was clear on that point. I know that these programs are being developed on the fly, so additional clarity on that point would help to weed out bad actors.