House of Commons Hansard #122 of the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was farmers.

Topics

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:25 p.m.

Bloc

Julie Vignola Bloc Beauport—Limoilou, QC

Madam Speaker, like my colleague, I took the time to read and analyze the budget. When taking notes, I use a red pen to indicate interference in Quebec's and the provinces' jurisdictions. There was a lot of red ink.

What does my colleague think of this aspect of the budget and jurisdictional meddling?

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB

Madam Speaker, it has become standard practice for successive Liberal governments, whether through direct legislative means, as we see in this bill, or through the myriad of other regulatory or political mechanisms, to blur the lines between the different levels of government.

Our federation works because there has to be respect between the different levels of government, and unfortunately we have seen a significant erosion of that over the last six years. It has led to an increased level of alienation in various regions of the country. Certainly it is being felt in western Canada. A lot of that points back to a Liberal government that refuses to stay within the lines of what our country was intended to be and how the federation was intended to operate.

It is incredibly troubling that time and time again we see an intrusion into provincial jurisdiction by the federal government. It is the Ottawa-knows-best mentality. That may make for great press conferences and great spending announcements, but it is not how leadership works. Leadership needs to be working with provincial partners and—

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes

I have to allow time for other questions.

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands has the floor.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the member to expand on his comment that the federal government is going into jurisdiction that is provincial territory. The only thing I can think of offhand in this regard is the fight over the price on pollution, which the Supreme Court said was within the federal government's jurisdiction.

Can the member elaborate on where the federal government seems to be going into territory that it should not be?

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB

Madam Speaker, the member emphasizes the problem. Time and time again, he refuses to acknowledge that there are regions of the country that demand respect in our federation. The Liberal government has refused to do this too, even in various pieces of legislation. I think about Bill C-48, Bill C-69 and even the debate around carbon pricing. The federal government has the ability to impose its will on provinces, but the question that should be asked is whether or not it should. The problem is that we have a Liberal government that refuses to respect anyone who disagrees with any aspect of the way it approaches politics, the legislation it puts forward—

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes

The hon. member for Vancouver East has the floor.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:30 p.m.

NDP

Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC

Madam Speaker, we know that during the pandemic inequalities have increased. The ultrarich are becoming richer than ever and those who need help are still struggling to get by. However, we do not see a wealth tax or a pandemic profiteering tax in this budget bill, Bill C-30. In fact, the government has opted to do more consultation in tackling the problem of tax havens.

Does the member think that this is the right approach, or does he think the NDP's proposal to bring forward a wealth tax and a profiteering tax at this time is the right way to go?

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:30 p.m.

Conservative

Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB

Madam Speaker, the member asks a question that strikes at the heart of the way the Liberals have pulled the wool over the eyes of Canadians. They are trying to outflank the NDP on the left regarding policy measures, and when it comes to actual implementation to deal with the things they promised to deal with, they end up simply saying that they will consult going forward or they back away from their commitments entirely. That is a further troubling trend we see, and the government is not being honest with Canadians. With a lot of the COVID programming, we have seen that, increasingly, it is the elites who are benefiting from the billions of dollars that were meant to—

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes

Resuming debate, the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:30 p.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Madam Speaker, I would like to underscore today the importance of National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada. We have much to reflect upon and much to do in terms of the justice that is required for true and meaningful national reconciliation.

From the very beginning of the pandemic, the member for Burnaby South and the NDP caucus have been pushing for supports that can really make a difference in people's lives. In the beginning, the Prime Minister proposed initial supports for the pandemic that were barely $1,000 a month. That is far below the poverty line, and it was the serious proposal by the Prime Minister. Members will recall that the member for Burnaby South and the NDP caucus pushed very hard to get that amount above poverty levels, above dire levels. We understood the magnitude of the pandemic and the impacts that were being felt in people's lives, so we pushed for an adequate level of support and ultimately they got $2,000 a month through the CERB, which became the CRB.

It is to our utmost dismay that we are now debating a bill that takes us back to where the Prime Minister originally wanted to go, with barely over $1,000 a month for people struggling to make ends meet during the pandemic who are unable to work because their businesses have closed. Whole sectors, including the tourism sector, have repeatedly raised concerns about the fact that the pandemic is not over yet and that there is no place for a victory lap. Indeed, the variants we are seeing are indicating, in some countries and regions, a disturbing number of new cases. In fact, we are seeing this even in the case of individuals who have been vaccinated with two doses.

People are subject to these variants, which are disturbingly starting to creep up in various parts of our planet and in some parts of our country, yet the government has persisted from the very beginning, with a budget announcement and now with Bill C-30, in slashing the benefits that Canadians so vitally depend on. They need those benefits to put food on the table, to keep a roof over their heads and often to pay for medication because the government broke its promise to put in place public universal pharmacare. However, we still have the situation where the government continues to insist that slashing benefits to below the poverty line is somehow in the best interests of Canadians. This is something the New Democrats have raised from the very beginning and continue to raise as a broad concern. As the variants disturbingly start to make progress across the country, this should be a concern for the Prime Minister and the government.

There are other aspects of this bill that the NDP has raised broad concerns about. One is seniors, who often live below the poverty line. They will not be given an OAS increase unless they are 75 and over, even though we know the poverty rate among seniors who are 65 to 75. That is another measure that makes no sense at all. We raised this at committee and offered amendments, but the government continues to refuse to do the right thing and put in place a broad level of OAS support that lifts seniors up, regardless of their age, and does not create two classes of seniors.

Broadly, our biggest concern with Bill C-30 has been the lack of vision in how we get through the pandemic and rebuild afterward. As my colleague, the member for Vancouver East, has pointed out, there is no wealth tax, there is no pandemic profits tax and there are no concrete measures against tax havens. Despite the plethora of documentation showing that Canadians and profitable corporations are taking their profits overseas, which is well documented in the Panama papers, the Paradise papers, the Bahamas papers and the Isle of Man scam, the government has not, after six years, brought a single charge against any of the Canadians or profitable Canadian companies guilty of tax evasion. Despite the fact that the information is freely available to the public, not a single time has it said that this is wrong and we should do something about it.

It strikes me as incredibly hypocritical for the government to say that it restored some of the cuts to the CRA and that is all it needs to do, when we have databases with the names of thousands of Canadians and profitable Canadian corporations and the government has refused to do a single thing about this issue. It has not charged a single Canadian. It has not charged a single profitable Canadian corporation.

As members know, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has indicated how serious this is. It is something that costs Canadians, in terms of tax dollars, an astounding $25 billion a year. Addressing the lack of a wealth tax, the lack of a pandemic profits tax and the refusal to take action against tax havens would make such a profound difference in our quality of life. We are talking about $25 billion to $40 billion annually that would be available to provide supports for seniors, for students and for people with disabilities, and to broaden our education system. We could lock in place public universal pharmacare. We could put in place dental care, which my colleague from St. John's East proposed and the Liberals voted against just a few days ago.

Today, on National Indigenous Peoples Day, we are talking about the fact that there are dozens and dozens of Canadian indigenous communities that do not even have safe drinking water, yet the government continues to say that it cannot do anything about the issue because it would cost too much. The reality, as members know, is quite different. The reality is that the government seems to rely on providing supports to the ultrarich. It does it with impunity and does it regularly, and it does not take care of the rest of Canadians, who have real, meaningful needs that have not been addressed by this bill, nor by government action over the last six years.

I can tell members about the heart of the housing affordability crisis in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia and in my riding. In that context, in the two communities I proudly represent, New Westminster and Burnaby, housing costs have spiralled out of control. However, the government has done very little about this. It makes noise about having contributed in some way to building housing units, but the B.C. government has built more new housing units than the rest of the country put together. The federal government made a small contribution to that, but it has tried to take credit for a program that was put in place by the B.C. government. This is another measures that could make a substantial difference in the quality of life of Canadians, yet the government refuses to implement it.

The member of Parliament for Nunavut did a housing tour showing, in vivid and appalling detail, the housing crisis in Nunavut and in the north, yet the government has not acted. It has refused to take the actions that would make a difference in the quality of life of indigenous communities and throughout northern Canada. It is perplexing to say the least that a government that could have put in place the tools to make a difference in people's lives has chosen not to do that. The government could have made substantial investments in this budget and with this budget implementation act, but it has refused to do it.

To add to that, I will come back, in a circular way, to my initial argument. The Liberals are cutting the emergency response benefit at the most critical time. Canadians who have tried to get through the last 15 months and have managed to survive thanks to the member for Burnaby South and the NDP caucus, which pushed for a CERB that was above the poverty line, are now seeing, looming on the horizon, a government that wants to lower the emergency response benefit to below the poverty line. That is unacceptable, and we will continue to push the government to do the right thing and not cut the emergency response benefit.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:40 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Madam Speaker, I have a finance question.

Two great economic historians from Harvard University, Reinhart and Rogoff, have listed five precursors to a debt crisis: asset price inflation, particularly housing price inflation; long-term current account deficits, that is to say buying from the world more than we sell to the world; a drop in output, as we experienced last year with the $100-billion drop in GDP; rising household leverage, and we have the highest household-debt-to-income ratio in the G7; and an increase in overall indebtedness. We now have $8.6 trillion of household, corporate and governmental debt combined, which is four dollars of debt for every one dollar of GDP.

If interest rates rise before these incredible debt ratios decline, does the member believe we could face a debt crisis in Canada of which I have warned in the past and am warning in the present? Does he share that concern, and what would he do to avoid it?

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:45 p.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Madam Speaker, the member for Carleton and I disagree on many things. We sometimes agree as well, but I always enjoy working with him at the finance committee.

He has raised something that the NDP identified years ago. The household debt crisis is a crisis that was enacted under both the former Conservative government and the current Liberal government by a refusal to put in place a fair tax system. When we force Canadian families to go massively into debt for post-secondary education, to go into debt to pay for medication that their family depends on and to go into debt for housing because there is no affordable housing available, that creates a household debt crisis. What we have seen under former Conservative government and the current Liberal government is a refusal to force the ultrarich to pay their fair share. The household debt crisis is intrinsically linked to the crisis that we have with a lack of a fair tax system that I mentioned in my speech.

There is $25 billion a year going into overseas tax havens, no wealth tax, no pandemic profits tax and a refusal to make the ultrarich pay their fair share.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:45 p.m.

Bloc

Denis Trudel Bloc Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his remarks. He accurately pointed out which sectors of the economy have been hardest hit during the pandemic and discussed seniors, people with disabilities and the housing crisis. In Quebec alone, 40,000 people are waiting for social housing, for low-income housing, and 450,000 people have urgent housing needs. It is a big deal.

During the pandemic, the government rolled out its big Canada emergency wage subsidy to help people working for struggling businesses. The Conservative Party, the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party all claimed the subsidy, which I find scandalous. The Liberals and the NDP have not said anything about reimbursing the money. We will be campaigning in two months, and the NDP is going to use government money, which was supposed to go to struggling workers, to pay for lawn signs. Is my colleague not the least bit embarrassed by that?

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:45 p.m.

NDP

Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Madam Speaker, we fought for non-profits to be eligible for the wage subsidy to ensure that organizations would not have to choose between laying off employees or keeping them on staff.

As the member just said, the member for Burnaby South and the NDP caucus pushed the hardest for this initiative which, as the member knows, already existed in other European countries, for example. This was important for Canada. The government initially refused, but the NDP continued to push for it, as we normally do, being the workers' party. We want people to stay employed.

We were successful, as everyone knows. The subsidy allowed for workers, including Quebec workers, to remain employed.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:45 p.m.

Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise in the House today and speak to the government's budget. I have been spending a lot of time talking to people in my constituency about where they think this country should go coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. What does the future look like? What are the things we need to be focusing on as we move forward as a country?

There are three big priorities that I am hearing from my constituents in terms of their concerns of the direction of the government. Their concerns are around rising government debt. Their concerns are around the failure to support the energy sector and the role that the energy sector will play in our economy going forward. The third concern I hear a great deal about in my riding right now is freedom of speech and attacks on freedom of speech that we hear from the government.

With respect to Bill C-30, the government's budget bill, let us zero in on the first of those two points: government debt and the energy sector. As we come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, people are looking to see what kinds of plans are in place to allow our economy to grow and prosper and be firing on all cylinders again. In order to do, that we need strong public finances. In order to do, that we need to have support for our key natural resource and other sectors that really drive prosperity.

We have to have sound public finance and we have to have revenue coming in to government coffers as a result of jobs being created, opportunities being created in our key sectors. There is a great deal of concern about the public debt that has been run up over the course of this pandemic, but it did not start with the pandemic. Let us remember, when the Prime Minister took office, we had a balanced budget. Canada had been through the global financial crisis. We ran deficits during those years, but Canada was back in a balanced budget position in 2015.

In fact, over the course of the tenure of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio had gone down. We had been through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Over the course of the tenure of that prime minister, through those incredibly difficult circumstances, the debt-to-GDP ratio had gone down.

We had a prime minister coming in and saying, “the good times will last forever, do not worry about it, the budget will balance itself, so we can run modest deficits”. Recall that 2015 election campaign, three $10-billion deficits followed by a balanced budget in year four: that was the promise made by the Prime Minister. Teeny, tiny deficits, $10-billion deficits for three years followed by a balanced budget.

What happened? In the first year under finance minister Bill Morneau, the government had a deficit that essentially ate up its promised deficit allotment for the three years all in one year. The Prime Minister had not foreseen perhaps, or maybe he did and just did not tell us, that when opening the floodgates with money for everything, money for this and money for that and we do not have to worry about raising the revenue for it, that can become a bottomless pit. We have seen over time this bottomless pit of willingness to go into debt get deeper and deeper. Instead of three years of $10-billion deficits and then a balanced budget, we had four years in the order of about $30-billion deficits. During relatively good years, the government ran up another $100 billion worth of debt.

Part of the reason we need to have strong public finances is to preserve that capacity during challenging circumstances to run deficits. In the midst of a global financial crisis as we faced in 2008-09, in the face of the pandemic as we dealt with in this Parliament, it is very often necessary to have some degree of deficit spending. However, if we are running deficits already prior to that period and then go further into deficit, we increase our risk of a long-term debt crisis. Certainly we run up massive amounts of more debt that have to be paid off at some point.

The government's long-term fiscal plan coming out of this pandemic involves very large deficits in perpetuity. There is no plan for us to ever get back at any point, even to the $10-billion figure that the Liberals talked about when they ran in 2015. The long-term plan is to spend more that we have every single year.

We have different parties in the House with different approaches to spending. Conservatives believe that it is important for us to move toward a balanced budget—

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes

I remind the member that he should not have any devices that make sounds near him.

The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:50 p.m.

Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Madam Speaker, I thought it was my children calling, worried about the debt they are going to have to pay off in a few years as a result of the profligate spending of the current government.

As I was saying, Conservatives emphasize the importance of moving toward a balanced budget. I do not agree with them, but I give the New Democrats credit for saying we should be spending more and increasing taxes. That is not an approach that is going to lead to long-term prosperity, but at least they sort of have understood at certain times that if they are going to spend more they have to pay for it somehow.

The Liberal government, uniquely in this place, takes the position that we could consistently spend more than we have: that, during good years, we can run what were historically considered large deficits of $30 billion; and then, during challenging circumstances, we can run astronomical deficits of 10 times that. Notably, this one Prime Minister has accumulated more debt during his time in office than all of the previous prime ministers had up until 2015. This is the great debt Prime Minister. That is his legacy to our children.

It is understandable that people in my riding are coming to me, asking what is the plan here, where is all this money coming from, and how are we ever going to get out from under this. I tell them the reality is that the money we spend today, we are going to have to pay off. It is going to lead to higher taxes, lower social spending or both, in the future, or maybe the government's way of getting out of it is simply printing more money and leaving it to inflation. That too is a form of taxation. It is a form of the government reaching into people's pockets and, through inflation, reducing the value of the money they have. Therefore, yes, we should be very concerned about debt.

The way we can move forward as an economy is going to also require strong job growth and a reoriented, rational economic policy that gets our debt under control. However, also part of balancing the budget is promoting growth. We need to have support for what have always been the engines of economic development in this country, and those are the natural resources and manufacturing sectors.

Conservatives have said very clearly that we want to support economic growth in all sectors of the economy. We want to support in all sectors and in all regions. For energy workers in Alberta, for forestry workers in B.C., for forestry workers and manufacturing workers in Quebec, for people working on the assembly line in Ontario, from coast to coast, Conservatives are supportive of those vital sectors. That is where we differ from the government. The government is disdainful of our energy and manufacturing sectors. The government is imposing additional burdens on those sectors. The Liberals have this notion that the sectors that have driven our success for all of our history could somehow be shut out of economic recovery and, instead, government could pick winners and losers and be subsidizing what it thinks are going to be the technology and the jobs of the future.

If we are going to put the focus on jobs and opportunity for Canadians, then we need to come back to those tried-and-true sectors that have delivered prosperity in the past. That means removing barriers from our oil and gas sector. That means supporting private-sector-driven stimulus, the development of pipelines, energy projects that employ so many Canadians, not just in my riding, not just in Alberta but people from other parts of the country who invest in or come to Alberta or who create component products that are then used in energy-related manufacturing as well as extraction.

We have this opportunity, going forward. We have an opportunity to secure our future; that is, to get our debt under control, to work toward a balanced budget over time, and to do so by controlling spending but also by supporting growth.

On the other hand, we have a government across the way who says we can shut down our traditional sectors and at the same time we could spend more money than we have. The Liberals are cutting the knees out of our revenue sources and they are continuing to insist on spending more and more. It is not going to work to undermine the sources of job growth and opportunity growth and government revenue and, on the other hand, to just keep insisting on spending more and more money. That is a recipe for economic disaster. The government is just bullishly moving forward in this direction that will be disastrous for our long-term economic well-being. We need a change. We need a government that is committed to securing our future.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his great speech on this important topic. He spoke a bit about cutting the knees out of our economy. Perhaps he was talking about the lack of pipelines getting built in this country. I wonder if he can talk a little more about that.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Madam Speaker, what we saw from the current government, immediately upon taking office, was killing the northern gateway pipeline and imposing all kinds of conditions on the possibility of an east-to-west pipeline that would connect Canadian energy with Canadian consumers. It has killed pipeline project after pipeline project, and that is obviously undermining investor confidence. At the beginning of this Parliament, there was the Teck Frontier project, a project that had been through all the hoops. Members of the government caucus openly lobbied to kill that project, which actually had a net-zero target built into it. We see project after project that go through all the steps, good projects that create jobs and take triple bottom line—

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

1 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes

We have a lot of interesting questions.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

1 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Madam Speaker, the member made reference to job creation. It is important to recognize that even pre-pandemic, this government had the lowest historic unemployment rates. In fact, in the first four to five years of governance, we created well over one million jobs, which is far superior to Stephen Harper's record.

When it comes to the deficit, even the Conservatives have been unanimously supporting the expenditure of billions of dollars through the wage subsidy and CERB programs. Is the Conservative Party now saying we should not have brought forward the wage subsidy and CERB programs? Is that—

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

1 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes

The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

1 p.m.

Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Madam Speaker, the member is quite correct that we sought to work with the government during the very challenging circumstances of COVID, but that does not mean we were not critical of some aspects of the implementation. There were many problems with the way these programs rolled out. We said there were ways they could have been constructed better. For instance, we talked about having a back-to-work bonus to make it easier for people receiving CERB to get back to work part time without losing all of their benefits. If the government had implemented some of our suggestions, we would have been able to be there for Canadians and also take into consideration the fiscal circumstances. We can do both at the same time; we can take both under consideration, but the government failed to do so.

Much of the spending is far beyond these benefit programs. There are the benefit programs, but we were in a seriously dangerous deficit situation even before the pandemic.

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

1 p.m.

NDP

Jack Harris NDP St. John's East, NL

Madam Speaker, the hon. member talked a lot about the recovery, but we are still in the middle of the pandemic. We hear constantly about the tourism sector and the hospitality industry, many of whose members have not survived. They need and want and are crying out for a continuation of the rent and wage subsidies for a while so they can survive long enough to recover. Do the hon. member and his party support that continuation so these businesses can survive long enough to enjoy a recovery and keep people employed?

Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1Government Orders

1 p.m.

Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Madam Speaker, it has been a pleasure working with this colleague. I wish him well in his planned retirement.

There are different things happening in different parts of the country. My province has announced a complete reopening starting at the beginning of July. There are different circumstances in different places and different trajectories. Hopefully, over time we are expecting the country as a whole to be on its way out of the pandemic as a result of various factors, including the availability of vaccines.

I would say to the member's question that a targeted approach is important. There are certain sectors that have been hurt more than others, and there are certain sectors for which the impacts will be there much longer. Therefore, it is important to look at the changes in the circumstances and how some sectors are continuing to be affected while others are coming out of it. Certainly, we would provide the tools and incentives for returning to a situation of growth as quickly as possible, and that does require a bit of sensitivity with respect to the different circumstances.