I think it's been far too low. I think this pandemic has revealed the inadequacy of the benefit level. We've been paying people the minimum. Far too many people have been struggling just to maintain any sense of ability to pay their bills and meet their obligations.
I think that earlier, the government set the benefit level at $500 per week for the CERB, recognizing that if you want workers not to fall further behind, you have to pay them a decent benefit.
I think we have to start from someplace. We believe that the maximum has to increase and the minimum has to increase because this has been frozen for far too long. There's a real need to examine what the levels should be. Equally, I think it has to go up.
It also disadvantaged women equally, who are highly dependent on their benefit. The last thing we want to do is to pay them such a low benefit that people don't think it's worth collecting it at the end of the day. It's critical that we recognize in this reform that the benefit level needs to go up, and we need to make sure we set it at the appropriate level to ensure that people in this country can meet their basic needs.