Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for your presentations. You're a very interesting panel of witnesses. Ms. Slater, Ms. Coates, and Ms. Wilson, the situation in which you and your colleagues find yourselves makes no sense. Hopefully the government will find ways to help you. The documents you have provided us with are full of solutions. We want you to be heard.
Mr. Siddall, you are the president and CEO of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I want to applaud you and thank you for the work that you have done. I wish you all the best in the future. I also want you to thank all your teams, who have worked very hard during the pandemic. I can't resist coming back to a topic you raised on May 19, almost a year ago. At that appearance, we talked about forecasts. I told you that many economists were expecting real estate prices to rise. Of course, I hope your forecasters have learned from this crisis. It is always difficult to make forecasts. That said, thank you again for all the work you have done.
Ms. St-Onge and Mr. Laflamme, when you come to testify here, it is always troubling. You are saying that two-thirds of self-employed workers in the cultural sector are in a state of psychological distress. Only one-third of them apply for or have access to the Canadian recovery benefit (CRB). This is very troubling. It must be further noted that self-employed workers as a whole are facing difficulties. The president of Travailleurs autonomes Québec mentioned the same problem with respect to the CRB. She also reminded us that, whenever there is a small problem, an investigation is launched and it takes months to resolve the matter.
If your members are facing the same problem, can you elaborate?
Do you see a connection between the very high rate of psychological distress and the lack of resources in existing programs?