Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the presenters for the information provided to us today. I really appreciate it.
I represent the Northwest Territories. Right now we have no COVID cases in the Northwest Territories. That's largely because we've closed all our borders to Yukon and Alberta. We've done a pretty good job of keeping ourselves locked in. It has really had an impact on our economy, though.
The government has done a pretty good job of supporting the different businesses, as we saw with the introduction of the northern business relief fund. That really helped us when we focused on the companies that fell through the cracks, but we're still hearing from companies that are very worried. Even though they have been able to access funding, loans and contributions, they still feel that in the long term they're going to struggle, because other parts of the world are opening up.
I'm referring to the tourism industry and the hotel industry. We're seeing destinations in Alaska, Iceland, Greenland, Sweden and Norway all opening up for travellers. We're going to see that in our country too, in Canada, and we need flexibility. We've seen some flexibility in the CEBA program that made sole proprietors and those with a payroll less than $20,000 eligible. I'm assuming there's been a big uptake on that.
Has there been any kind of recommendation, or any position, or any kind of thought on what will be needed as we go forward? Some jurisdictions and some regions will be closed for a longer period than others. I'm thinking that the north will probably be closed a lot longer than the southern part of Canada. I'm wondering if you could provide me with any kind of comment or thoughts on that.