Madam Speaker, I believe our government's approach during the pandemic was compassionate, fair and responsible.
I listened tonight to my colleague, and I mentioned before the respect I have for him. He continues to raise such matters, as is his right, but he neglects to mention what the Canada emergency wage subsidy, or the CEWS, a signature pandemic emergency response program, was all about. Yes, wage subsidy support did go to large corporations, but the vast majority of the funds under the program went, in fact, to small businesses. It went to medium-sized businesses as well, but, in the main, it was small businesses, mom-and-pop shops, restaurants, retailers, those in manufacturing and entrepreneurs who had started businesses and had put their blood, sweat and tears into those businesses. They were the ones getting the support.
Failing to mention that, in a way, takes us down a path that would misunderstand what the CEWS program was all about. It was about keeping employees on the payroll. It was about making sure those employees who had been laid off as a result of the pandemic could be rehired. By and large, it was an enormous success. If my colleague is looking for perfection, he will look a long time. There is no perfect policy, but I go back to the fact that in the context of a pandemic, where one had to fly the plane and build it at the same time, so to speak, this proved to be an enormously successful program.
My friend does not have to take that only from me; he can talk to the business community. He will note that unions have spoken about the importance of the wage subsidy. Again, it is not a perfect program, but it is a program that did help enormous numbers of Canadians, businesses and their employees, by the thousands.
In my own community of London, Ontario, I saw it at work. It was quite successful there as well. Whether it is on the street or in the constituency office, I continue to hear about the role it had.
On CERB, the Canada emergency response benefit, my colleague has not mentioned it here, but he has raised in the past the idea of a blanket CERB amnesty. I get where he is coming from on that, but he fails to mention here, too, that, as a general fairness principle, one has to be very open to the obligation of the government to ensure eligibility. That is, in fact, what the Canada Revenue Agency is doing now. It is going back and ensuring that those who actually received the CERB were eligible for it. If that effort is not made, it really goes against the whole idea of a social safety net. One has to, in principle, always be open to the idea that in order to receive program support under any social safety net, and the CERB is an example of that, one needs to be eligible for it.
The government is taking that approach. It is also putting in place an approach that says to those individuals that they have the ability to have a repayment plan offered through the CRA, so that, if they cannot afford to pay the lump sum of the amount owing, they can have a repayment plan to pay incrementally whatever they can afford on a monthly basis.