Mr. Speaker, I rise today after my colleague who grew up in Sherbrooke, the beautiful riding that I now represent.
In 1970, the October crisis was difficult for all Quebeckers, and 50 years later the ever-present memories of those events are still painful. We have a duty to remember the innocent victims and their families. These people are always uppermost in our minds when we talk about the October crisis.
It is important to reflect on our history and to study and understand it. That is how we learn from what we have done. The lessons of our history remain rooted in our memories and guide our future actions. Our children and grandchildren must learn from the past. They need to know that violence has never been and will never be an acceptable way to promote political ideas.
Today, 50 years later, we are in the midst of another crisis unlike any we have ever experienced before. This health crisis is the collective fight of our lives, and every effort is being made to fight it. COVID–19 has devastated Canadians from coast to coast, and Quebec has been hit particularly hard. Quebec is the epicentre of the pandemic in Canada and its economy has been hit harder than any other province.
The government's role is to keep the public safe from both violence and disease. I am therefore rising in the House today to report on what the government has done to fight this unprecedented crisis and to support Quebeckers in need, particularly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
I would first like to remind the House that Quebec's economy was in good shape before the pandemic. In February 2020, our GDP was up 2.9%, and we recorded an unemployment rate of 5.1%, the lowest since 1976. Businesses were thriving, and their long-term development was robustly supported by our government's efforts to promote innovation and growth.
With the lockdown, much of our economy is on forced pause. Everyone’s life has been disrupted. This is especially true for entrepreneurs and workers in small and medium-sized businesses. These businesses are a source of good local jobs, but also of local pride. They are the backbone of our economy and our communities.
Faced with the uncertainty and risks caused by the crisis and with the calls from the provinces and municipalities, our government very quickly understood the importance of helping them weather the crisis and acted very quickly. Since the beginning of the crisis, the Prime Minister has announced a series of measures to support workers and businesses. These measures constitute the largest economic assistance program in Canadian history.
These include the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which is designed to help businesses keep their employees and rehire the ones they had to lay off. This program has supported more than 3.7 million Canadian workers to date, and many in Quebec have been able to take advantage of it.
Our government has also worked with financial institutions to provide small businesses with access to a wide range of loans with attractive terms, including the SME loan and guarantee program, through which Export Development Canada can guarantee 80 per cent of new SME operating credit loans and term loans. This financial support is available to our businesses, whether they are exporters or not.
Another example is the Canada emergency business account. Launched in April, CEBA provides interest-free loans that include a partial write-off for small businesses that have seen a decline in revenues due to COVID-19, but still have fixed costs. By helping these businesses with these costs, CEBA supports the resumption of normal business operations post-COVID-19.
Lastly, we introduced the co-lending program for small businesses, in which the Business Development Bank of Canada works with financial institutions to co-finance term loans for up to $6.25 million in additional funds, in an effort to meet small businesses' operational needs in terms of cash flow. We have been responsive to needs, and have continuously defended and improved assistance.
However, what we heard when we met with entrepreneurs is that, despite the extensive economic and social safety net we set up, smaller businesses were still having a hard time. For that reason, we introduced the regional relief and recovery fund, or RRRF, with a total budget of $962 million, including $211 million for Quebec. The fund is administered by Economic Development Canada for Quebec regions, either directly or indirectly through key partners like community Futures development corporations and the PME MTL network.
This fund is designed to support businesses at the heart of our local economy that cannot benefit from existing federal programs or that have needs that are not covered by these programs. It provides SMEs and organizations that lack liquidity with emergency financial support to enable them to remain operational by helping them pay their employees and cover their fixed costs, among other things.
Through the RRRF, we have already been able to offer financial and technical support to more than 300 companies across Quebec and thus contributing to the resilience of a number of SMEs in that province. We have also carried out 3,600 SME financing projects in peri-urban and rural areas under the RRRF with the help of the CFDC network. Overall, between May and October, more than 15,000 jobs were protected in Quebec in thousands of small and medium-sized businesses thanks to the support granted under the RRRF.
All of these measures have helped protect many jobs in Quebec, provide emergency support to families and keep businesses afloat as they deal with the impacts of the health crisis. This crisis has not spared any sector of our economy and, with the second wave, additional support is clearly needed.
That is why, on October 2, our government announced an additional $69.8 million for CED to help businesses in Quebec recover from the impacts of COVD-19. This amount flows from the additional $600 million in national RRRF funding. This additional investment brings the total amount of assistance provided in Canada through the RRRF to more than $1.5 billion, and the amount for Quebec to $280 million.
In the Speech from the Throne, we also reiterated our commitment to support businesses and regional economic development and to continue backing communities in the fight against the pandemic. That is why the government intends to introduce legislation to implement the new Canada emergency rent subsidy and to extend the Canada emergency wage subsidy in the near future.
However, at the same time as we are providing short-term support against COVID-19 to SMEs in Quebec, we are also preparing to help them to take advantage of the business opportunities that are emerging in the new economy taking shape before our eyes. Let me give the House a concrete example.
CED has just organized the fifth Symposium on the Canadian Defence and Security Market. It brought together the major players in this key industry in our economy, as well as SMEs and research centres in Quebec, in order to create productive networking opportunities for our companies. Let us not forget that Quebec occupies an enviable place in the defence and security sector. In fact, of all jobs in the Canadian defence industry, 23% are located in Quebec.
Because of this initiative, the SMEs were able to look to the future and position themselves at the heart of the the business opportunities in this sector and the new economic realities of the post-COVID-19 era that are beginning to emerge. We can see that the decisions we are making now will have a major impact on our future prosperity. We are choosing to invest.
Our message to workers and SMEs is clear. We were there for them with emergency measures and support, and we are here for them now, standing by them until our economy can reopen in stages.
We are working with them as we learn from the past—