Thank you, honourable member for Saint John—Rothesay, for the opportunity.
Let me say that this is not a matter of my valuable time, etc. There is no more important place for me to be than right here with you, right now, and the same was true yesterday. Omicron is in Canada and it is spreading. There have been many times, I'm sure, that you've heard, before this committee and through other committees, about the urgency of what is before you and the need to act quickly. I cannot tell you how urgent this legislation is and the signal it would send to so many workers before Christmas that we have their backs, that it is okay to stay home and that they should not have to make difficult decisions on their rent or mortgage. We need them to stay home, for them to stay well, for their families to stay well, for all of us to stay well.
The urgency of omicron is real, and this will send a signal in a tangible way for us to minimize the impact of this variant.
The second thing I would say—and this is in response to a comment by Madam Kusie—is that we are very well attuned to the costs borne by businesses. It is very easy for politicians to appear before committees like this and say, “But, you know, it is much worse if we don't do this....”
But it is much worse if we don't do this. It is much worse for small businesses, for big businesses, for all businesses—for us—if we don't take measures like this. It is real. We know that. We've been through it. We don't want to go through it again. We don't want to go through a complete lockdown of this economy again.
There are things we can do that we absolutely and essentially need to do. All I want to do is assure honourable members—and I've sat on a committee similar to yours—that I'm not abusing this language or these sentiments in front of you. This is not political rhetoric. This is real. The cost to the economy if we do not take measures like this will be enormous. We know that because we're coming out of it. The urgency of acting on this has never been more vital. Omicron is here.