I would now like to talk about the $1.5‑billion assistance plan that you quickly rolled out. In fact, we welcome this initiative and sincerely thank you for it. However, I'm hearing a concern from SMEs. The government is investing $500 million in the program to encourage the purchase of machinery and to increase productivity. It's an excellent program, but it may not be very well suited to SMEs, which are currently facing fewer orders and therefore less revenue, so they don't have the capacity to buy new machinery.
As for the loan program, there are many concerns that the targeted businesses may be too large compared with the reality of SMEs. Entrepreneurs told me that, in times of hardship, they could access a loan of $100,000 or $200,000. A two‑million dollar loan is much bigger.
Could the criteria be changed, if necessary?