I'd like to thank the member for the question.
From the formation of the policy it made a lot of sense to bring in this program, and I agree with the member. The federal government will step into the shoes of the employee who's owed back wages, severance, and termination. We started with a program that was a little smaller in scope and we've expanded it twice. Those expansions have been important, because they reflect that we hear what's happening across the country.
We had a situation whereby wages were covered, and then we expanded it to include severance and termination, because we were hearing from people, unions and workers alike, around the country that this was needed, and we did that.
Then we heard in some cases there were people whose companies would try to reorganize or restructure or go into receivership and they were unsuccessful eventually, but the way the timing worked in the program, those people would not have been eligible for WEPP, so we expanded it again to make sure we captured those people.
It's one of those programs where you're continually listening to make sure you're getting it right, and the good part about it is that we're managing the money very well. Putting that extra money into the administration allows us to deal with matters more quickly. We have had an increase in the number of applications as a result of expanding the program, but I'm hoping we're going to see fewer bankruptcies around the country so that we'll not have to use the program as much.
It's a successful program in the way it's run, in that it gets money into the hands of people who very much need it, but it's a program that you don't want to have necessarily, because you're addressing a situation where employers are closing and not paying their employees. But we don't believe they should bear the brunt of it, so we step in and we make a payment to make sure that during that period of time they have some cover and help.
It's one of the clearest programs we've put in place that goes to the root of helping people, and you can see it around the country. As time goes by and we work with more trustees and more recipients and they understand how it works, our department works much better and we're able to move those service standards along. But the goal, quite frankly, is that we have a situation where people don't need access to this program.