Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
Of course wage subsidies are important. Just look at the Liberals; they are certainly taking full advantage. It is clearly very important to them, but the problem is that the whole purpose of the program was kind of undermined when the government shamelessly helped itself to the Canada emergency wage subsidy. The Liberals are in no danger of going bankrupt. I am quite sure they will not go bankrupt this year.
Economics teaches about two kinds of costs businesses have to cover: fixed costs and variable costs. Variable costs are usually salaries, which are covered by the Canada emergency wage subsidy.
What we are proposing is even more important for Quebec because small businesses drive our economy. Yes, there are businesses in Manitoba, and that is fine. We are not saying this is bad for the rest of the country.
Getting back to fixed costs, of course businesses have to cover variable costs and payroll, but they also have fixed costs, which they have to cover even when they are not producing anything. That is the crucial point.
Just helping businesses cover their variable costs is not enough; we have to help them cover their fixed costs too. That is microeconomics 101, which I teach at CEGEP and university. We have to help businesses with their fixed costs. That is why we reached out to the government, but the government did not respond.
Is that because it forgot—