Thank you for the question.
The same question was asked of Mrs. Clare Barnett in the previous committee. She had also indicated she's been seeing a lot of support since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our business in helping support small businesses.... I mean, we all experienced it. Everything locked down, everything closed and small businesses were in a pickle. They were having some challenges.
We provided them with the CEBA loans. We've supported close to 900,000 small businesses across the country.
For those deadlines you're talking about, the first deadline was December 31, 2022. At that time, small business entrepreneurs needed help and an extension, so we provided that extension. This extension that we provided them gave them more time to be able to make decisions.
It wasn't a hard date. We provided three options for entrepreneurs, to help make it more flexible and provide them with more options.