Thank you. I did have a pen.
I think I need to start by acknowledging that I did make a mistake with respect to the lack of decision to recuse myself from the decision around the WE organization.
I think I also need to acknowledge that not every single thing that our government has done over the course of the last few months was perfect. We have been, as was just mentioned, working during a time of crisis, in a pandemic, a time like none of us had ever faced before.
The answer to the last question is quite clear. We knew we needed to move at speed and with scale to support Canadians. We knew that we needed to do our very best analysis on what the right policy would be and how to best get that support out to Canadians. We also knew that, as we moved forward, we would almost certainly have to fix things and improve things as we went along.
That was the approach we took. I think that the response we've had as a country—which, in answer to the direct question, involved more than 70 programs and over $200 billion of direct support to Canadians—has put us in a much better situation than we would have been in had we not taken that approach. It has delivered for individuals and for families, and it has protected our economy for today and for the future. The risks of not doing so would have been dramatically greater—for individuals and for families struggling to get by, but also for our long-term future and our opportunities.
I do recognize that there is more that we need to do, but this is an unprecedented time. We are going to continue to consider the needs of Canadians first, deliver the kind of support required and improve things as we go along. Yes, we will make mistakes. We will try not to make mistakes—of course, that's never our intent—but we will rectify those mistakes as we think about the next steps.
This pandemic is not over. We know there's more work to be done, and we need to keep our focus on that and on Canadians.