Madam Speaker, I think the point is that we do not have to choose. We can have programs that support people when they are unemployed. However, the ability to deliver good, strong supports for people who are unemployed is contingent on the fact that we have enough people who are employed, are able to work and can pay into those programs, and are therefore able to grow our economy.
There has to be something to redistribute money, in other words. My colleagues in the NDP are enthusiastic about redistribution. I say that if we are redistributing money that is merely printed and not wealth that is created, we are not actually helping people in the long run or even in the medium term.
I will quibble with his point that inevitably the pandemic was going to be at the same proportion. I agree it is a global pandemic that has affected every country to some extent, but it has affected some countries considerably less because they took measures early on that the government was unwilling to take. There are still—