First of all, thank you for the question.
Obviously yes, during a time of pandemic things are accelerated, and as I said from the beginning and as I have said throughout this pandemic in all my press conferences, we have moved quickly to try to get help out to people as fast as we could, as flexibly as we could and would fix those mistakes as we went on. There was an understanding that if we waited until everything was perfect before doing anything, far too many Canadians would suffer and, because of the health emergency, even die. We needed to act quickly.
That is certainly part of the context, but I don't think it's the whole reason as to why I didn't recuse myself. Youth issues are something I've been deeply involved with through all my career. I care deeply about the idea of youth service and seeing young people be able to help in their communities with organizations across the country.
This proposal mattered to me, and instead of encouraging it along, as some people say, because it was somehow connected to my family, I actually slowed it down and pushed back on it to try to make sure that everything was done exactly right, because I knew there would be questions asked because of the links to the family.
In no way was this benefiting my mother or my brother, to be creating a grant program for students to volunteer in their communities right across the country.