Let me put it into the context of this time period during COVID-19. During COVID-19, it was really important that we were providing supports to help Canada's small businesses and entrepreneurs throughout the country. As I said earlier, my department and my staff had a daily call with businesses from all across the country, including groups that represented businesses. At times, there were literally over a thousand businesses on that morning call.
There were proposals, there were suggestions and there were ideas that would come through. In fact, because of the urgency and the time compression, we were literally working as just one team. There was no such thing as a political team or a departmental team. We just worked together, listening to businesses and hearing from them. We were also hearing from members of Parliament from all sides of the House about solutions that might be had. It just came into our department, and we were listening, on the one hand, to what the needs of businesses were, and then seeing, on the other hand, if there were solutions or ideas or programs that might actually work to help businesses.
The process simply was that should there be ideas that came in, or solutions, our department would look at them, they would vet them, they would do the analysis and then they would make a recommendation to me. We would, of course, engage in conversations with Finance, because this was also a time when it was really important to see how we might be able to take an idea forward. The CEBA loan is a perfect example. We knew we had to get that liquidity out to businesses, but they were delivered by Canada's banks. Then you'll know, of course, that we also had to make changes. They are delivered through the credit unions as well.
So it really came in, and we responded by looking through to be sure that there were solutions that met the needs of businesses; if so, there was an analysis done, and a recommendation.