At www.savehospitality.ca, my partners Eric and John and I originally came up with a plan, before some of these other announcements like the rent relief program, in which we were asking for 10% of last year's sales. We did it specifically, Mr. Cooper, because it would be very easy for the banks to underwrite those forgivable loans that we asked for.
At this point, not knowing what the rental program is, and depending on how much it is and what it is, I don't know what the forgivable loan amount should be anymore until we have those details.
All of that being said, 100%, what we do need is liquidity. Our solution is a little different from yours, in that, instead of it being tied directly to what you pay in HST, which can be a little challenging given the differences among all the provinces and territories, we went out and did intensive modelling, from businesses that do under a million dollars in sales up to restaurants that do $10 million-plus in sales, and said, “Look, we're a fixed cost. The industry is the industry, and the numbers are quite similar.”
We 100% support having a forgivable loan program tied to your sales to allow you to have confidence that the government will be there to allow you to bring back every single one of your employees and give you the capital and the support you need to ensure that those jobs continue, that those people come off of government assistance, and that they continue to then become one of the largest tax bases in the country.