Thanks for the question. It builds on Mr. Poilievre's intervention at the beginning of this meeting.
As a quick digression, my first political job was as the student union president at St. FX. I was one of those students who used to show up on Parliament Hill to advocate for additional supports for students. When I was in that role, we were begging the government for an intervention much smaller by orders of magnitude than what we've seen in the past few weeks.
The issue around a disincentive to work is perhaps nowhere less true than when it comes to students, who value work experience often as much as the paycheque that comes with the jobs they work at in the summer.
I'll note in particular that some students will still be working this summer. We've made a great effort to create additional positions—116,000 positions—to help students achieve the level of work experience to kick-start their careers. However, there are quite a few students—tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands across Canada—who are facing an economy that is not as rosy as it appeared to be just a few short months ago. We have to recognize that they too have ordinary costs of living that are coming due, whether that's rent or electricity, and also have the added challenge of saving up for the next semester or to start paying off student loans.
Some of the things we've done include putting a moratorium on student loan payments for the next six months. We have included an income support, yes, but to provide an additional incentive to work for those who want to work but can't find a job, we've also created the new Canada service grant, which allows students to take part in activities that will help with the fight against COVID-19. This will provide them with work experience and a grant of up to $5,000 to help with their education.
I see I'm running out of time, so I'll cut it off there, but please know that we want to support students both with the cost of living and by encouraging them to work while we help them save for school at the same time.