Thank you very much, Chair.
I want to thank both witnesses for coming to the committee today.
Monsieur Céré, I will allow you to continue that discussion. I very much agree with what you just said. I've been in constant communication with my friends across the world, from some of the regions that have experienced terrible outbreaks during this wave. They are telling me that part of the reason is that workers don't have financial support from their government. They don't have coverage. They don't have a choice but to go to work and provide for their families.
Earlier on, last March, the government made a very clear, and I think a very decisive decision to make sure that personal financial support was in place. We can see, and I agree with you, that almost nine million Canadians who lost their jobs due to COVID have had substantial coverage in terms of income. Had that not been in place, we'd probably have ended up in a much worse situation, especially during the first wave.
We heard a lot of concerns about that, a lot of debate about that, the cost of it, that people may game the system. Everything had to happen very quickly, in a matter of weeks. We heard that during the debate. Sometimes I'm unclear, even now, where the honourable Conservative members stand on these issues. We hear conflicting comments on these. One thing I learned in the last year is to always go by their votes. I do appreciate that, at the end of the day, all parties worked together and got those supports through very quickly, prior to last summer, which was fantastic.
One thing that we noticed in the transition from the CERB to CRB is that the system was intended to be very flexible, to be inclusive of those who normally wouldn't qualify under the previous EI system. I want to get your thoughts and your feedback, and perhaps through you, from your membership, on how these flexibilities benefited them, or more importantly, benefited the workforce of our country.