My colleague Mr. Fraser raised earlier the whole idea of universal basic income. The economist Kevin Milligan has said that if we did proceed to put in place a basic income in response to COVID-19, the total cost would be $240 billion for four months. The math is pretty simple. The amount of $2,000 per adult for four months leads to $8,000 per adult. If you multiply that by 30, you end up with $240 billion as a direct support.
Has there been an analysis done on whether or not, if we had proceeded in that direction, there would have been enough left over to introduce all the other measures that we've seen to support businesses and Canadians? What would that have done to our balance sheet if indeed we had proceeded down the path that the NDP and some others have called for?