Thank you, Mr. Julian. I stand corrected then.
Then my point is just the one that was already made, so I won't spend more than a second on it. I think if we wanted to come to an agreement, it would have been helpful for us to have received it beforehand.
I do want to thank Mr. Julian for reminding all Canadians and everyone who is listening that this committee was charged with financial accountability for all of our COVID expenditures. I want to remind Canadians that our former minister of finance and our finance department officials did an extraordinary amount of work to ensure that every two weeks we did receive a biweekly report on every single bit of spending that was approved, followed through on and spent. That report actually continued right up until prorogation in August.
I want to make sure that Canadians are reminded that we have been accountable. We have been transparent. We continue to be committed to both of those principles in as fulsome a manner as possible.
I also wanted to address some of the comments that Mr. Poilievre has made because I don't like leaving things hanging. This government doesn't have a socialist agenda. He has indicated that a number of statements he has made are true. I will say that we have spent an extraordinary amount of money, and most economists have said and said that our federal government was right to actually spend as deeply and as widely as we have because of the unprecedented pandemic and what our economy is going through.
I'll also say, since Mr. Poilievre has thrown out some numbers, that 75% of Canadians have returned back to their jobs. Our unemployment rate has moved from 13.7% to 8.9%. These are positive moves. Indeed many economists have said that we are faring better than some other G7 nations, including the United States, in terms of trying to restart our economy and move our economy forward as we move through this pandemic.
There are over $230 billion in direct support measures for Canadians that have already been spent. You can tell how helpful they've been by the number of Canadians who have taken advantage of those programs, including the 8.8 million people who have received CERB. Now it's been transitioned to CRB and to EI. More than 3.5 million employees are supported by the wage subsidy and 380,000 students are benefiting from the Canada emergency student benefit.