Finance committee  I have no comment on the matter. I do know that at the agency, we've continued our work throughout elections, throughout the winter, throughout COVID—

Finance committee  Perhaps I could turn to one of my colleagues, if they are aware of the situation, and if they're in a position—

Finance committee  Just to clarify, you're asking whether we have seen any studies on that. Is that the question, sir?

Finance committee  I am not. Again, I'll just reiterate that this policy is an ESDC policy. They and the Department of Finance are both responsible for the policies here. We're responsible for the administration.

Finance committee  As I said previously, I am not aware of any formal analysis with respect to published papers. Certainly ESDC has been looking at the issue of what kinds of benefits have been needed over time and how that's evolved. What I observed from CRA is a clear pattern of how demand for th

Finance committee  I'm not qualified to answer that. I will say that the last 18 months have been extraordinary in terms of my career. I've been working for the government for nearly 32 years, and things are done much faster than they were before. The CERB, for example, was introduced in three week

Finance committee  I'd be happy to start. I'm sure my colleagues will supplement my answer. Yes, it is a challenge to target payments to a sector, simply because there are borderlines. Whenever you create any sector, you're going to have a challenge about who's in and who's out, no matter how wel

Finance committee  I'm sorry; I'm not sure I understand the question. Are you asking if it would be difficult to target the cultural sector?

Finance committee  I'm happy to answer that. I've not been aware of any formal published studies on this. I will, if I may, supplement, that yes, the Department of Finance and Employment and Social Development have been looking at the need for these programs, and the strategy has been to evolve

Finance committee  I don't have that statistic available. I can tell you, looking at the latest numbers that I've seen, that it's not a particularly unusual year with respect to what happens every year. Some people will get more and some people will get less, because incomes fluctuate. I didn't s

Finance committee  It's the same thing. I don't have the numbers available, but you are correct. If an income goes up, their CWB in some cases could go down, so you're going to see some of that. Likewise, when incomes go down, you'll see increases in the CWB. Because of the enrichment to the CWB, i

Finance committee  I would not. I'll just say briefly that it can be somewhat complicated, because individuals receive employment insurance, and that migrated to the CRB that was provided by ESDC. Isolating those impacts can be conceptually difficult, but we certainly can look at what numbers are

Finance committee  I apologize. I'll turn this over to my colleague Marc Lemieux regarding the impacts—that is, if you're looking at how much money we are going to recover in terms of overpayments. Is that what you're looking for?

Finance committee  If the question is whether we have a precise number right now, I'll turn to my colleague. I'm sure the answer is “no” at this point, as it is an ongoing process to determine who is ineligible and whether a recovery is possible.

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, I'd be happy to try to answer that question.