I certainly agree. We want jobs for Canadians to be able to work, but we also want to remember that there are Canadians who, for reasons beyond their control, are not able to work, or they've taken their retirement because they worked all their lives. We need to make sure that they're able to continue to live with dignity, whether it's in their retirement or in their adult life when they're not able to have a job.
When we talk about the financially vulnerable, some of those folks are being pursued despite reassurances from government that, if they had applied for the CERB in good faith, they wouldn't be punished. The clawback is one way that's happening.
For instance, I think of the example of kids in Manitoba who were in the foster system and who graduated out of foster care. They were told by the provincial government in Manitoba—I mean, there were no jobs available that summer—“You can't apply for social assistance until you've applied for every other possible form of financial relief and, by the way, here's the website to CERB.” They went, they did what they were told and they applied for that. They weren't eligible, but they were being told that was what they had to do, on pain of not being able to receive any other benefits. Now they're being asked to pay back up to $14,000 to $16,000.
That's why people like those in Campaign 2000 have been calling for a low-income CERB repayment amnesty. It's not something the government has indicated they're prepared to move on, although we believe you should. How much money does the government expect to get back from these financially vulnerable Canadians who clearly don't have the means to pay it back? What is the value in pursuing them if the government isn't going to realize any significant revenue from that?