I can.
The sickness benefit, as you know, came out of the conversation with the provinces under the safe restart agreement. The concern expressed at the time was that once the CERB had wound down, there were going to be Canadians who wouldn't have access to paid sick leave. Without access to that leave, individuals would have an incentive to ignore symptoms and go to work because they needed income to survive. Therefore, the Canada recovery sickness benefit was designed to be as flexible as possible to avoid that problem. They way we did it is that it is effectively a universal benefit for individuals who have minimal labour market attachments, which was defined in the same $5,000 way as we originally defined it in the CERB.
If you have that income and you are required to self-isolate or you acquire the virus, you are allowed to take the benefit. We don't ask whether or not you have other forms of sick benefits available to you. If you have sickness benefits from your employer, if you have an entitlement to EI sick benefits, you don't have to take those benefits first. However, we do require that you not receive multiple benefits for the same period of time, so you can't be claiming EI sickness and the recovery sickness benefit for the same period of time. If you do have more than one benefit available, you have the choice as to which one you want to take.