Mr. Speaker, I would like to echo my colleague from Timmins—James Bay's compliment on your excellent work. You have earned it. I appreciate your work as Speaker of the House and occupant of the chair.
I would like to begin by responding to the point of order raised by my colleague from Kingston and the Islands. I do not think my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan was ill-intentioned. It happens to us all. Unfortunately, technology being what it is, mistakes happen. Still, I do want to point out that we have made major progress and quickly adapted to this new technology and a hybrid Parliament.
Moving on, I will now answer the question posed by my colleague from Kingston and the Islands. This is not a jurisdiction issue, but is he admitting that his government is incompetent? The program that was supposed to help businesses pay their commercial rent was created by the federal government and is under federal jurisdiction.
The provisions of this program as it appeared last spring were legitimate, but poorly constructed. The government should have simply done a copy-paste. If I may offer some advice after the fact, the government should have hung on to the arm's length eligibility criteria with safeguards. There was nothing wrong with them. The government should have included them in the version of the program that was launched in the fall. Unfortunately, yet again, the government improvised and went too fast.
The thing is, it is possible to do things both fast and well. Sadly, the government is incapable of doing that, and my colleague from Kingston and the Islands may have publicly admitted that the government is incompetent.