Madam Speaker, our government needed to step up quickly and decisively to prevent Canadians, families and Canadian businesses from falling off an economic cliff when COVID-19 struck. We needed to encourage employers impacted by the pandemic to retain and rehire employees by delivering assistance as quickly as practical and as possible.
To achieve this and ensure that the wage subsidy would be targeted to those in need, we required that employers experience a decrease in revenue to qualify, but otherwise kept conditions to a minimum. As a result, well over five million Canadian employees have had their jobs supported through the wage subsidy, with well over $76 billion paid out in wage subsidies as of April 25.