Health Committee on April 19th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome, everyone, to meeting number 30 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health. The committee is meeting today to study the emergency situation facing Canadians in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I would like to welcome our witnesses. On this panel, as an individual, we have Ms. Winny Shen, associate professor, organization studies, Schulich School of Business, York University. From the Association des gastro-entérologue du Québec, we have Dr. Mélanie Bélanger, president. From Coalition Canada Basic Income, we have Dr. Cordell Neudorf, professor and medical health officer, and from Moms Stop the Harm, Ms. Leslie McBain, co-founder and director.

With that, we will invite the witnesses to present their statements, starting with Ms. Shen for six minutes.

[Dr. Winny Shen, Associate Professor, Organization Studies, Schulich School of Business, York University, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and honourable members of the committee, for the opportunity to speak with you today.

My name is Winny Shen. I am an associate professor of organization studies at the Shulich School of Business at York University and the current chair of the Canadian Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

As an organizational psychologist who conducts research on issues of gender and diversity in the workplace, I have been asked to address the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women's workforce participation and the importance of addressing these unequal impacts on the road to equitable economic recovery.

There are two interwoven strands that have contributed to more women than men leaving the workforce as a result of the pandemic.

First, in contrast to prior recessions, such as the great recession of 2008, the industries most harmed by the pandemic through job loss are those in which women tend to be more strongly represented, such as those involving people and having significant interpersonal components. This includes the hospitality and retail sectors, which contributes to the greater impacts on young women and women of colour.

Additionally, the pandemic has put more strain on small and medium-sized businesses relative to large organizations. Female-led businesses tend to be smaller on average than male-led businesses, and may be more financially precarious due to greater difficulty in accessing capital. Further, women dominate many segments of the health care workforce on the front lines of the pandemic. Significant burnout and the ensuing turnover have resulted from our protracted battle with this virus.

Second, the pandemic has increased care responsibilities, which have mostly fallen to women. The unavailability or unreliability of child care and school during the pandemic tends to be borne mostly by women, leading to reduced work hours and decisions to leave the workforce. The impacts on single parents, most of whom are single mothers, are particularly stark. Similarly, we know that elder care responsibilities also tend to disproportionately fall upon women. Those have been heightened during the pandemic as well, given the vulnerability of the older population to the virus.

As we look ahead to recovery, we need to ensure that women are not left behind and to carefully consider whether policies could have unintended consequences for women. We cannot simply assume that the jobs lost in female-dominated industries during the pandemic will come back quickly or at all. Companies that are managing costs by understaffing during the pandemic may choose to continue to do so, given ongoing uncertainties.

Additionally, to build a more resilient and fair economy, we should consider how to make gender representation across industries more balanced so that future economic downturns are experienced more equally across different segments of the population. We should also consider how to better protect the most vulnerable, for example by increasing the pay associated with people-oriented work so that more men consider these jobs. Another example would be to incentivize women to pursue opportunities in traditionally male-dominated industries where there is great need for entrance, such as in the skilled trades.

The pandemic has also highlighted the precarity of our progress towards gender parity in the workforce and the related financial security it provides to women and families. Without intervention, the pandemic could have a significant impact on women's careers for decades. We know that employment gaps are often viewed unfavourably by employers, which can make future job-seeking more difficult and can have long-term impacts on future earnings. This may particularly be the case if employers interpret these gaps as a signal that women are not committed to their careers and invest less in their career development over the long term as a consequence.

Finally, the pandemic reinforces the fact that people's—particularly women's—ability to participate in the workforce is dependent on the resources available to support their non-work responsibilities, such as caring for family members.

Thank you for this chance to share my views.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We now move to the Quebec Association of Gastro-Enterologists.

Dr. Mélanie Bélanger, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Dr. Mélanie Bélanger, President, Association des gastro-entérologues du Québec]

Good morning.

I am the President of the Quebec Association of Gastro-Enterologists. I represent 273 members. As medical specialists, we investigate and treat digestive diseases. We are the only doctors fully trained in digestive endoscopies, specifically those needed in the prevention of colon cancer.

Endoscopy is a way of exploring the interior of cavities in the human body. Our practice includes colonoscopies to study the colon and gastroscopies to study the stomach. Thanks to recent technological advances in endoscopy, we are able to use the patients' natural passages to conduct procedures, to take samples, to remove lesions and thereby to avoid classic surgery. These are short procedures, often taking less than an hour, needing no general anaesthesia, no hospitalization and no recovery time. The estimated cost of a colonoscopy in Quebec is less than $1,000.

Colonoscopy plays a crucial role in preventing colon cancer. This cancer is the third most frequent and the second most deadly in Canada. According to the Canadian Cancer Society, each year, 27,000 Canadians are diagnosed with it and 9,700 die.

Colon cancer is unusual in that it can be prevented. This distinguishes it from the early detection approach used in the case of breast and prostate cancers. Colon cancer screening, using colonoscopy with some of the patients, allows lesions that are still precancerous to be removed. Patients therefore develop no cancer at all, preventing surgery, chemotherapy and mortality. The science proves that colon cancer prevention programs reduce the incidence, the severity and the lethality of this very frequent cancer that affects men and women almost equally, starting in the 50s, and sometimes earlier.

Quebec is the only province yet to have an official program of colorectal cancer screening. Patients therefore must take action themselves and ask for a referral for an iFOBT test, also known as a FIT Test. This test is recommended for all Canadians 50 and older. It requires a stool sample and looks for the presence of microscopic traces of blood, blood that is invisible to the naked eye. If blood is detected, the patient is then referred for a colonoscopy. Five per cent of all iFOBT tests are positive, meaning that the same number of colonoscopies are necessary. They are recommended within eight weeks at the most, in order to prevent the lesions progressing during the waiting period.

Of the patients with a positive iFOBT test, 35% will have polyps, or precancerous lesions that can be removed to prevent cancer, and from 6 to 8% will already have cancer, but with no symptoms.

Before the pandemic, about 22,000 colonoscopies per month were performed in Quebec. Since March 2020, access to colonoscopies has been significantly reduced, which has had a major, negative effect on the number of polyps and cancers detected. Because of the marked reduction in endoscopies during the first wave, followed by a recovery that is still incomplete today, only 73% of the number of colonoscopies performed in Quebec in 2019 were done in 2020. So more than 63,000 fewer colonoscopies were performed during the pandemic, meaning that we currently have a backlog of more than 110,000 colonoscopies in Quebec, 63% of which are late.

A lot of catching-up will be required to slow the increase in the number of cancers, and of deaths from colon cancer.

At the moment, gastroenterologists do not have the human resources or the access to the equipment they need to start catching up.

We propose three solutions. First, we believe that new, fully functional endoscopy rooms must be quickly established. Second, specific budgets should be provided exclusively for endoscopy units, as they already are for emergency rooms and operating theatres. This will prevent hospital budgets being cannibalized by other more sensitive areas. It will also allow the specialized nursing staff to become more stable, thereby increasing productivity. Third, we must have reasonable investments in patient follow-up and in quality control.

In conclusion, I hope I have shown you that thousands of silent and asymptomatic Canadians are our patients of tomorrow. We should not let urgency outweigh importance.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Dr. Bélanger.

We'll go now to the Coalition Canada Basic Income with Dr. Cordell Neudorf.

Please go ahead for six minutes.

[Dr. Cordell Neudorf, Professor and Medical Health Officer, Coalition Canada Basic Income]

Thank you. Mr. Chair, and committee members.

I am both a public health physician and an academic who does research into the causes of health inequities and the impact that programs and services have on reducing these inequities and improving health and well-being.

I am speaking to you today in my capacity as a member of Coalition Canada Basic Income, which is a coalition of basic income and anti-poverty groups from across Canada that formed near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in response to the early signs and predictions of the inequitable impacts this event would have on the Canadians who are living in poverty.

Our members have worked for many years with community service organizations, non-government organizations, concerned citizens, people with lived experience, as well as academics and other experts to advance the case for an evidence-informed approach to improving income support programs in this country. As has been well-documented by our chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, in her October 2020 report called “From Risk to Resilience: an Equity Approach to COVID-19”, there has been a disproportionate impact on subpopulations, those who face racism, stigma, or discrimination in many forms due to both the disease itself, as well as the interventions that we've had to use to bring it under control.

This report outlines several high-impact areas of action as a way forward as we move out of the pandemic, learning from what it has exposed. The first and foundational area mentioned is that of economic security and employment conditions. In the first few months of 2020, groups that worked with populations living in poverty were faced with impossible choices. They were being asked to close or adapt services to keep clients safe from COVID knowing that this then risked disrupting the precarious balance of supports these clients depend on. They have also joined our coalition as they have seen the limitations of our current systems of supports and services first hand.

Income supports that were put in place to help Canadians who found themselves out of work during the pandemic response helped a lot of individuals and families who were one paycheque away from homelessness and poverty, and showed that government can be nimble in mobilizing resources to help those in need. However, some people who did not qualify and were already living in poverty may have received bad advice, or applied for this funding only to find that they were then subsequently cut off from their existing income supports, or were being asked to pay this money back. In other cases, the amounts they had been receiving through existing programs were substantially less than the cost of living, and it made the CERB an attractive option for survival. Others faced eviction once temporary bans on evicting people during the crisis were lifted, or saw their lives thrown back into crisis as precarious supports and services were cut back due to COVID safety concerns. The pandemic and our responses in controlling it, essentially, have exposed gaps in our complex system of the programs and services that we have for those living in poverty.

Multiple studies in Canada and elsewhere have also shown that those living in poverty have had more cases of COVID at a higher rate, higher hospitalization rates, and higher deaths than other Canadians. Fortunately, many studies have already been done that show this doesn't have to be the case. Previous experiments with guaranteed annual income in Canada and elsewhere have shown that participants experienced better health, both physical and mental health, and utilized fewer health and social services. The vast majority have used this more secure base of income to stabilize their current circumstances and better plan for their future. Our existing old age security and guaranteed income supplement programs have moved Canada from having one of the highest rates of poverty for older adults among OECD countries to one of the lowest, while the rate of food insecurity among this age group has dropped 50%. Similarly, the child benefit has raised over 334,000 Canadian children above the poverty line, and UNICEF views it as a model of an effective basic income program for that subgroup.

As we make progress in decreasing poverty in this country through these types of programs, we need to address the other subpopulations who are still living in poverty.

Our current programs and services often have complex eligibility criteria and regressive qualification requirements, such as the need to liquidate current assets or claw back any income earned while on assistance, that collectively serve to keep many families in poverty. This has drastic consequences for their health and well-being, leading to yet more costs to deal with the after-effects of the health and social costs of poverty through downstream funding and even more services.

This pandemic has shown us that we need a stronger base to rebuild on to make us more resilient to face future crises. By adopting a guaranteed annual income, families impacted by job loss during a future pandemic or a major change in the economy would know they were secure while they waited for their jobs to return, or they would have the flexibility to retrain for whatever jobs emerged in the new economy. In addition, we'd have a simplified system with less administrative costs with more of the investment going directly to those in need, simultaneously reducing the indirect costs of poverty and reducing the complexity and inefficiency of our current system.

In closing, the costs of a guaranteed annual income are not insignificant, but the costs of dealing with the after-effects and downstream impacts as well as our complex current system are almost as large, and perhaps even larger, with less impact. Many studies have shown that for the most complex cases, the costs of the health, social service and justice systems' current responses to the effects of poverty and homelessness are enormous. They often leave people in the same or worse condition in the end, with little hope for the future.

We can learn from the successes and limitations of our pandemic response and build back better. Basic income has the potential to enable all Canadians to live healthier lives by reducing the negative health impacts associated with living in poverty. It is for this reason that many health and social service organizations, including public health, endorse developing a basic income for Canadians.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Dr. Neudorf.

We'll go now to Moms Stop the Harm, with Ms. Leslie McBain, co-founder and director.

Please go ahead, Ms. McBain. You have six minutes.

[Leslie McBain, Co-Founder and Director, Moms Stop the Harm]

I am the co-founder of a non-profit national organization called Moms Stop the Harm. Two other moms, Lorna Thomas and Petra Schulz, and I lost our beautiful sons to drug harms in 2013-14. The next year we decided to act. By early 2016, we had an organization of 18 people. Today our members number well over 2,000 families across Canada.

Our aim was, and still is, to advocate for evidence-based drug policies that support rather than punish people who use drugs. We do not want any other family to experience the deep and lifelong pain of losing a child, especially to a preventable cause. We continue to advocate for humane drug policies, and we now have a network of trained peer-led support groups that support families in grief and support families struggling to keep their loved ones with addiction alive.

With the help of provincial and federal grants, we have expanded the groups across Canada. In the past 12 months, our membership has soared. It has expanded to dads, friends, siblings, religious leaders and first nations people. This is a result of the exponential rise in the number of toxic drug deaths and survived overdoses in Canada during the pandemic and the attendant rise in drug use.

How has COVID impacted these families and their communities? The impact has been and remains profound. Given the conditions that the pandemic has imposed on all of us, and the community of drug users and their families in particular, we find that families have increasing levels of stress, fear and anxiety if their loved ones with problematic drug use are still alive. More often now, families receive desperate phone calls as services disappear through COVID restrictions, or the one phone call that no parent ever wants to receive.

Treatment and recovery services are as ridiculously expensive now as they have ever been. There are longer wait-lists and people are dying while they wait. Many families who are fighting for the lives of their loved ones have already faced COVID-related economic hardship. This turns into desperation. Mental health services are inundated and unable to cope with the rise in need.

One of our members, a single mom with two teenagers at home and a son with mental health issues and addiction, has lost her job as a retail manager because of COVID cutbacks. When she had a dependable wage, rent was affordable, child care was within reach and she was able to connect with her addicted son, who chooses to live on the street. She often gave him money or another phone, or bought him clothes or another backpack. Given the reduction of services to help him, she is now his sole protector. Now she does not have enough money to help him much, and she now has a serious gastrointestinal disease caused by the stress. Her doctor says, “Reduce your stress and take these pills.”

The grief within families and communities that have lost loved ones to toxic drug death is a tear in the fabric of Canadian society. Since COVID appeared, the grief felt by families who lose a child to drug death is exacerbated by not being able to gather for funerals, wakes or other traditions. People do not visit or bring casseroles. The surge of the psychological impact of solitary grief rages side by side with COVID fears.

People who have a substance use disorder, which in normal times is challenging, stigmatized and a dangerous disorder to have in this country, have been cautioned to isolate during COVID just like the rest of us. What this means to people who are addicted is extreme vulnerability.

The previous message given for many years, which was “never use alone; always have a buddy nearby”, is almost null. People who use drugs take COVID warnings just as seriously as the rest of us. Using alone is more dangerous now, during COVID, than it has ever been, because of the increased toxicity of drug supply. If a person overdoses, they will likely die alone or suffer permanent brain injury in the absence of help.

COVID has interrupted the normal flow of illicit drugs into Canada. Drugs that traditionally come into Canada across borders, although toxic, were somewhat comprehensible. People who are addicted had some idea of the strength and the inherent dangers. They were still dying and they were still ending up in the ERs, but not in the numbers that we see today.

Local illicit drug manufacturers, not willing to ignore a very lucrative market that suddenly appeared, have hastily started producing powerful substances, throwing in highly toxic drugs in amounts that kill. Toxic drug deaths have increased 120% since 2019.

During COVID, like the rest of us, people with substance use disorder are disconnected from their communities, their families and their living situations. Shelters have closed. Services have closed or become very limited. Safe consumption services have closed or have severely cut their hours. These things often cause increased drug use as connections have disappeared, and connection means everything to people who use drugs, as well as to the rest of us.

I am not an academic. I am not a scientist. I am a bereaved mother who has heard 2,000 stories. I know the wash of grief over this country and I have seen the physical and psychological toll on our members before and now especially during COVID.

If the federal government, in partnership with provinces, could act on the evidence and implement a safe supply of drugs to people who need them, decriminalize possession of personal amounts of illicit substances, and make investments in a system of care that makes rapid access to treatment and recovery and mental health services accessible to everyone, the effects of COVID, the effects of the current drug scene, and the deaths and the desperation of families would definitely be mitigated.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. McBain.

We'll start our questioning now with Mr. Barlow.

Mr. Barlow, please go ahead for six minutes.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to our witnesses for being here today.

Ms. McBain, I'll start with you if that's okay. I certainly appreciate your sharing your personal story. Sometimes it's beneficial when we don't have academics but people who have lived experience, and I know, unfortunately, that too many of us have lost friends or relatives as a result of the opioid crisis, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Certainly we've seen the numbers, as a result of lockdowns and restrictions, and the use of substances and opioid deaths and suicides increase dramatically over the last year. In my province of Alberta we had the second-highest number of suicides in the country ever over the last six months.

Would it help to have a one-stop, single 988 suicide hotline manned by mental health experts? It's something we don't have in Canada right now. Currently we have a different system in every province. Many times when people call they get an answering machine or a recorded message. What kind of a difference would it make? It could be a quick and easy step, a 988 suicide hotline manned by mental health experts. What kind of a difference would that make?

[Leslie McBain]

I think anything helps. Everything helps.

If it were a hotline that could address suicide as well as other mental health issues—and I should say including even drug use and addiction—yes, that would be a great idea. It couldn't hurt, but at the same time we need, across the board, connections through a phone line or through a phone app whereby people who are using drugs are able to connect with somebody who is listening.

I don't know if you've heard of the app, but it's like the Lifeguard app, where they have to respond within certain key number of seconds or emergency services are called.

Anything that helps keep people alive during this pandemic is invaluable. Suicides are up, and we need whatever supports are available, so the answer is yes, of course.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thanks, Ms. McBain.

My province of Alberta, I know, is piloting that app and program as, I am sure, are other provinces, so that's a good first step.

You talked about the inability to gather and how the isolation has become even more difficult. I think your comment was “extreme vulnerability”.

Is the lack of vaccines and getting the vaccines out and getting people vaccinated and life back to normal—I know that's not an issue regarding opioid use—a huge component of this, just trying to get some sort of pathway back to normal so that people are able to gather again?

[Leslie McBain]

Absolutely. I think we're all waiting for things to become safer. When people lose a loved one to any cause, we have traditions. As I said, we have rituals and things that are really important to our mental health in losing someone we love.

Families who lose a loved one to drug harms are already dealing with the stigma and the isolation due to just that, the problematic drug use. We still have that. Without the supports in place that we would normally have, their lives become very dark and desperate a lot of the time, especially if they can't have people coming over to hug them or just to sit with them.

Vaccinations are incredibly important and I think we all know this is the only way we're ever going to get back to any semblance of normal, and especially for the people who are so vulnerable, to grieve that. This will make a big difference.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thanks, Ms. McBain. I'm sorry. I don't mean to cut you off, but I just have a limited amount of time.

Ms. Shen, I want to move to you if I could. You touched on some issues that I know many of us are hearing about. Certainly in some Zoom calls and webinars we're having with our chambers of commerce in trying to see the impact on small businesses, one of the biggest messages I'm hearing now is from women who are small business owners, who are now having to take on the stress and anxiety of worrying about their business, worrying about their employees, worrying about their families and also the families of their employees. They're taking on all of that responsibility.

I can't imagine the stress they're going through trying to run their business, working from home and also trying to balance their children's education, which is many times at home.

What would be some recommendations on some programs or steps we could implement or recommendations we could put forward to try to address this? I'm assuming the ramifications of this will be long term.

[Dr. Winny Shen]

I think that is very true in when managing multiple competing demands all at once. As one recommendation, I know the federal government put in place a lot of attempts to help small businesses, but a lot of that is just going towards keeping businesses afloat. It's not really enough to make any....

It's also very limited in time. It's hard to plan ahead. Even if today is taken care of, tomorrow might not be, and you're worried about not only yourself and your family, but also, as you mentioned, the health and well-being of all the people you are employing.

More consistent, longer-term planning is needed to deal with the pandemic for people who are running businesses, especially given the ongoing uncertainty. We need to find ways to ensure continuity of care for people. I'm in Ontario, where we're in our third lockdown. We know that trying to manage the sudden need to school and care for children at home makes managing work and family responsibilities very difficult at the same time, so we need to find new ways to make sure that we can find care opportunities for people.

I know these are difficult issues, but that's the reality we're faced with. If we don't deal with these issues, we will start to see people who can no longer sustain their business or who are forced to opt out of the workforce entirely.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thanks, Ms. Shen, and Mr. Chair as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Barlow.

We'll go now to Mr. Kelloway for six minutes.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Hello to my colleagues.

I really thank the witnesses for their testimony today.

I'm going to focus on Dr. Neudorf. As you know, I've been an advocate for basic income in my riding and in the Atlantic region. Our government implemented a number of support measures for Canadians throughout the pandemic, most notably the CERB. I think at one time there were about 7.5 million people on CERB.

For me, in essence, the CERB acted as a kind of basic income for those who needed it the most. I'm interested in a couple of things: One, what do you think we can learn from CERB; and two, can we use that model to begin to create a national framework for a basic income?

[Dr. Cordell Neudorf]

Certainly one of the main things CERB showed us was that it is possible to orchestrate broad-based income support quickly and nimbly from the federal level. It's something that has been debated for some time. Even without pre-planning, we could get that funding very quickly into the hands of Canadians who needed it.

I think what worked well for those who were targeted specifically by CERB could work at least as well for those who perhaps did not qualify. We know that many others found themselves impacted by the pandemic, but not directly because of job loss. There are many people and many types of circumstances into the future that we maybe can't predict, where the economy or people's lives can be thrown into disruption and they find themselves living on the streets or living in poverty.

Taking that kind of approach but asking how we can make it more inclusive and potentially simplify or even replace some of the more complex systems that have been put in place is something to do, I think, in consultation with provinces and territories to see how we can harmonize this.

The reality is that over time we've been seeing the tremendous role of government in being able to provide those kinds of supports for citizens. Over time we've cobbled together improvements to social services and programs. At some point, it becomes so overly complex that it becomes difficult for individuals sometimes to even know they qualify for an existing program or service or have the means to get at it and they don't quite qualify. It costs a lot to administer that kind of system and it ends up not actually meeting the needs of many.

In short, yes, we've learned that a simplified program that can meet the needs of families and individuals who are affected by all kinds of crises is possible and can work.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I have a follow-up question to that, Doctor, for my colleagues, myself and for Canadians watching.

Are there best practices out there from other countries or other regions of the world where we can extrapolate success? I know that's a broad definition. Are there best practices out there that are happening right now or that have happened that we can learn from?

[Dr. Cordell Neudorf]

Yes, there have been multiple experiments at national or subnational levels that have tried a basic income approach of one kind or another for a time. It's difficult to just take examples from another jurisdiction and apply them directly to Canada. You have to look at what context we are putting it in. Many of these experiments have shown—similar to what we just talked about with CERB—that they do work.

We've shown that even in the Canadian experiments that have gone on in the past, like in Manitoba in the 1970s and even more recently in Ontario.... That program was unfortunately cut short prematurely, but even in that short time, we found that the direct impacts on improvements in the health of the individuals, their children and families were substantial. There was actually a decrease in utilization of health and social services by families as their lives were more stabilized.

It's also been shown that, overall, the proportion of people using those funds in very productive ways to obviously just stabilize their initial crisis then find ways to build back, do re-education and invest in their families.... It has been substantial and transformative for many of these families.

The research has been done. There isn't a need for another pilot project. It's been shown to work. What's needed is to now implement it in the context of our Canadian system.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

You have 30 seconds.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I have very quick question, Doctor.

From the research that I've been able to extrapolate from different sources—and we've talked about it here in terms of entrepreneurship—I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about youth entrepreneurship and how a basic income can assist young people in establishing their own businesses.

[Dr. Cordell Neudorf]

There's a strong case to be made from multiple sectors for basic income. Certainly, from the entrepreneurial sector, there's some good research that's been done there as well.

The ability to know that during that critical development time where there isn't a short income coming in, but a need to develop that base and start a new business is important. As we've seen during the pandemic now, for those who unfortunately just launched a new business and were facing these kinds of crises, the ability to float over is important. Those are two sides of the same coin.

There's a real ability to stimulate that kind of creativity and entrepreneurship, because of that understanding that you're starting from a stable base.