Madam Speaker, the issue with the emergency wage subsidy is one that has come up many times. Through the work of the opposition party and the government listening to advocacy from the CFIB and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, we have seen improvements in the wage subsidy, but there is a gap in the current announcement.
I want to read the minister an email from one of the franchises in Barrie—Innisfil. A constituent wrote to me yesterday and said:
[W]e believe that the government needs to make these changes retroactive to Period 4 (June 7th to July 4th). We were down 27.5% in May and 21% in June and yet we get no support from the CEWS for those 4 weeks? We received the CEWS in Periods 1-3 and it looks like we will receive some form of support on the sliding scale until December. But June is a missed period for us, as I am sure it will be for many other employers who were starting to recover their lost sales and fell off the 30% revenue decline cliff. [The Prime Minister and the finance minister] both pledged changes to the CEWS on May 15th that would deal with this cliff effect. We believed them and it took 2 months for it to happen. In our opinion the right thing for the government to do is to make these changes retroactive to June 7th not July 5th.
What is the minister's response to that?