Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon from sunny Saint John—Rothesay to all my colleagues and my friends. It's wonderful to be back at HUMA and it's wonderful to see everybody again.
First off, Minister, I want to thank you for coming to HUMA today and answering our questions. I sincerely want to thank you, on behalf of my constituents in Saint John—Rothesay, for our government's and for your department's rollout in particular on the CERB. Obviously, there are those naysayers who would say that the program has been rushed and poorly thought out. I've never seen a program that has been this extraordinary to get money out to Canadians so quickly, so seamlessly, in really the crisis of a generation.
I want to thank you first and foremost for the CERB. When I heard about the Canada emergency response benefit, CERB, I didn't realize that I'd certainly be referring to it and dreaming about it every night. But there are still some things that we need to talk about. We need to fine-tune and tweak some things.
My first question is about the disincentive to work with respect to the CERB. I certainly have some employers in my riding who are starting to ramp back up. I thank God that New Brunswick is leading the country right now, with our sixth straight day of no cases. We're starting to ramp forward. But some employers in the riding are starting to talk to their employees about coming back, and unfortunately they've dealt with some employees saying, “Well, I'm still on the CERB. I don't really want to come back to work right now.”
I want to see how we can tighten that up. For example, I would like you to explain how the recent changes, which are good changes to the CERB, allowing people to earn up to $1,000 to continue receiving the benefit and our government's proposed employee top-up for essential workers, will help ensure that the CERB is not the disincentive to honest work.