Mr. Chair, I would like to thank the member for even saying publicly again that he is my friend. He does not seem to learn.
The NDP members have raised a number of criticisms on the student service grant, one of them being that people would get less than minimum wage. They have asked a lot of good questions around this, so I applaud his party for doing that.
However, the focus should have been always on how we get resources to those who have the least and are in the biggest need. That is something we should be asking ourselves constantly when we are in a crisis. How do we help those the most?
We have an existing program that has large support in the chamber, and that is the Canada summer jobs. I have had entrepreneurs and not for profits coming to me saying that they could have given great jobs to people and helped them to support them so did not have to get big loans later. That would have been a much better situation. It would not have caused a controversy. It would not have distracted the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance to such an extent that they are basically unable or unwilling to do their jobs in the middle of a pandemic.