It's an excellent question and I absolutely 100% agree with its premise that the reasons.... Subsidies for business are a bad thing. They create all sorts of terrible incentives and we should do as little subsidization as possible.
This is, of course, very different. The government has imposed a shutdown for good and valid reasons, a needed shutdown on swaths of the business community. As we begin to lift those restrictions, that will begin to be the time when we can start to take away some of the measures.
However, there are businesses that are not going to see the effects of the problem in the immediate phase. For example, the tourism industry right now is in a fairly slow season, but we worry that while Canada is coming back up and running—let's hope, over the summer—if tourism hasn't bounced back by then, the impact on that sector will be huge. If it misses those bookings during those valuable summer months, it will not then be able to rely on its income in the rest of the year.
It's going to be an art far more than a science and we're going to have to plan as we go, but it is absolutely critical that there are some significant subsidies in place right now that really do freeze businesses and protect them so that we can then take those supports off at the earliest opportunity.
I know that in years to come in the finance committee, you'll be pointing at this testimony when I'm complaining about higher taxes, so please do keep it, Chair, on record; but we're going to have to deal with that when it comes. Right now we have business owners who are absolutely not sure where to turn. The supports are needed right now, and we will work with you to find opportunities to take them off, but I think you're absolutely right that we should be thinking about that carefully.