Thank you.
First of all, I think it is definitely the case that the health response to the risk of workplace contagion was inadequate from the beginning. There was a considerable attempt initially to minimize the risks.
Perhaps among the worst possible examples is an instance such as that of the Cargill meat facility in Brooks, Alberta, or that of the Amazon warehouse in Brampton, Ontario. You don't need to be an occupational health and safety expert to understand that those were going to be very dangerous places during the pandemic, but regulators either wilfully ignored or soft-pedalled the sorts of steps that would have been required to protect the workers and their families and ultimately whole communities in those places.
The federal government has a limited responsibility for direct health and safety within the federal jurisdiction, so that's important. You can set a role model there with absolutely top-of-the-class workplace health and safety standards around contagion. Then again, you can facilitate the provinces in doing a better job, including through income supports. This will neutralize the false economy-versus-health trade-off that is still circulating.
Now we're in the midst of a third wave that obviously could have been handled much better if we'd been stronger on limiting contagion from the beginning. I think the federal government, by providing income support as well as regulatory guidance, has an important supplementary role to play in that effort.