One of the reasons we are really keen on the refundable tax credit concept is that we see right now that businesses are very concerned about spending any of their capital. Businesses at this point in time have a finite amount of cash. They're relying on government programs like the CEWS, the different loan programs, those types of things. A lot of these businesses are not just deciding when to open; they're deciding if to open, will they open.
I'm sitting here in Alberta and, like you, we are in phase one of our reopening. There are still a lot of businesses that are eligible to open and they're not. They're not opening because there's a lack of consumer confidence and there's a lack of confidence within the business community. If they go out of pocket to reopen—whether it's doing the infrastructure that's necessary to make sure their teams, their staff, can socially distance and their clients can be safe in their environment—they want to make sure there is some merit in their being open.
A refundable credit would allow people to make improvements, whether it's working on their HVAC systems, their air conditioning, working on installing doors that open automatically. Even in our office here, everyone is afraid to touch the door handles, because no one wants to contaminate another person.
We believe in a measured response like a refundable credit for businesses, and also for homes. There are a lot of families who are looking at bringing their elderly parents into their homes, who are looking at working from home on a go-forward basis.
If we could have some way to kick-start the economy and get construction workers working on some of the retrofits for the businesses, that would be good. We're not talking about things that are prettying up.... We're talking about things that would improve the safety and well-being of all Canadians in a manner that gets businesses back up and running.