Will do. I'm sorry about that.
As I was saying, the program itself is seemingly at odds with the government's own efforts to crack down on the exploitation of workers through unpaid internships, including in regard to the standards for work-integrated learning activities regulations, which are set to come into force in September 2020.
Finally, this program places onerous demands on students, who are expected to work 500 hours between June 25 and October 31 in order to obtain the full $5,000 grant. This translates into working more than 50 hours per week between June 25 and the end of August, if someone were to try to hit the 500 hours before the school year starts, or it would translate into working more than 27 hours per week every week from the start of the program on June 25 until the end of October. The latter arrangement potentially interferes with these students' studies during the first two months of school. Also, these concerns about the obligations this places on students are heightened given the unique financial, family and child care obligations Canadians are facing during the COVID-19 crisis.
For all of these reasons, the Canada student services grant has serious design flaws that give rise to the exploitation and the potential misclassification of students and recent graduates, and it is in need of a serious overhaul. At this point in time, the best way to try to salvage the program would be to completely remove the mandatory volunteerism requirement, to convert the existing positions into paid jobs through the Canada summer jobs program, and to expand and build up the Canada emergency student benefit to CERB levels and also extend it to international students.
Those are my remarks. I welcome your questions regarding these matters. Thank you.