Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his speech and for the openness with which his office has received our suggestions.
I want to talk about a number of these suggestions that I think he and his office have received favourably.
One, our early concern with the wage subsidy was that an employer would not find out until the end of a pay period whether he or she was eligible to receive a subsidy. In other words, employers would have to make a decision to hire people without knowing, for 30 days, whether their wages would be subsidized. We suggested that they have the ability to get an answer at the beginning of the pay period, as opposed to just at the end.
Two, we raised the concern of owner-operator businesses that do not have $5,000 of wages and therefore earlier did not qualify for the CERB because they paid themselves previously with dividends. This group was not eligible for either a subsidized wage or the CERB under the original iteration. I want to know if the minister can update us on any adjustments he has made to solve that problem. I believe there is some good news for that group.
Third, there is a concern about businesses that are not arm's length from one another; in other words, there is a parent company and a division. The division might have experienced massive revenue drop, but the parent company has not, and therefore the division was not, under the original proposal, eligible for any wage subsidy. I believe the ministry has taken that concern seriously as well.
I wonder if the minister can update us on those three concerns and how he has addressed them.