The good news is that the government has laid the rails for really good programs that could deliver with some minor modifications.
I wasn't a huge fan of the CEBA loan program at the beginning, I have to admit, but Minister Morneau, who hated my guts, put in place a good program before he left office. The CEBA program provided a $40,000 loan, of which $10,000 was forgivable. Minister Freeland expanded that to a $60,000 loan, of which $20,000 is forgivable. That should be expanded to $80,000, in my opinion, with 50% of the overall loan being forgivable. That would take away some of the debt load that businesses have faced.
The other one is HASCAP, the good program that Minister Ng and Minister Freeland put in place. There has been a terrible rollout so far, just to let you know; some of the banks have just now started to offer it. That HASCAP loan for those who have been highly affected, including those in the restaurant and hospitality sector, provides a loan of up to $1 million at low interest rates. The idea of providing a forgivable component—let's say a quarter of that loan would become forgivable upon repayment of the balance—sends the right message to the economy.
You need to be a going concern in order to get the forgiveness, but it relieves some of the debt. Businesses can't afford to keep taking this on the chin, and this, remember, is not their fault. We're privatizing societal losses on independent businesses that can't afford them.