Madam Speaker, I was talking to Jackie Ryan, who owns Jacqueline's Aesthetics in Port Alberni. She is a constituent of mine. She is self-employed, and her home-based business has struggled immensely since the beginning of the pandemic. First she closed her doors to protect public health. Now she is down 50% because people are afraid to get out into the community.
Jackie, like many other Canadians, turned to CERB to help pay back the bills and support her family. She would not have been able to buy food or support her children and deal with her prescription medications. Now the Liberals are telling Jackie she needs to pay back the CERB, which she cannot do. She, like many others, is angry. She is disappointed. She is scared. She does not know how she is going to survive the next few months without support from the government, never mind pay this back.
Does my colleague agree? Does he have constituents who are honest business owners who maybe had a tax-filing year when they showed a loss and a carryforward, and then were caught in this quagmire, where the Liberals say that they have their backs and they do not? Many women, as we know, have been disproportionately affected by the COVID crisis. This is impacting people like Jackie.
Does my colleague agree that the government should back off and not be asking people like Jackie to pay back the government for supports it promised them?