Industry committee  The pay was about an appreciation for the additional work they were doing during their days.

Industry committee  I'm sorry; what's your specific question?

Industry committee  I don't think they're equal. That's why we spent tens of millions of dollars in order to make our stores safer, in order to provide an essential service to Canadians.

Industry committee  It was as given by the governments and the health—

Industry committee  We would have used information from the health—

Industry committee  Yes, ours was more straightforward in the sense that it was two dollars per hour for all store colleagues, all DC colleagues, all front-line workers in our stores and across—

Industry committee  As I said, we did put many protections in place. We have encouraged our employees, colleagues as well as customers to wear masks in line with what the government has suggested. In those areas where it's been mandated, we have absolutely followed that, as well, for both colleagues

Industry committee  As I mentioned, we were an essential service, so we did have to make sure that people did come to work every single day, and absolutely, the two dollars was in appreciation of that. I'm unbelievably proud of the team that did that.

Industry committee  What he was referring to is that we believe in a progressive minimum wage. What I said in my opening remarks, and what Mr. Weston was referring to, is that we would be very pleased to work with the government on determining what a living wage for the various areas of Canada would

Industry committee  Because we don't have all the information to be able to determine what a living wage in every part of Canada is, we would need to work with the information that the government has as well.

Industry committee  To me, it is bigger than just one company. [Technical difficulty—Editor] industry decision [Technical difficulty—Editor] done in collaboration—

Industry committee  My response was that it can't be just one company making the decision. It really does need to be done in concert with the government and other parties. It's bigger than just one industry or one company. We're competing against multinationals. We're competing with e-commerce giant

Industry committee  I think we spent millions of dollars to put safety protocols into our stores. You have to understand that we were deemed to be an essential service. We didn't have the option to not operate, so we spent lots of money to make sure our stores were safe.

Industry committee  Safety precautions have been put in place now and they are the new normal. What has changed is the volume going through our stores and the panic buying that was happening during that period of time. The other thing that has changed is that the rest of the economy and businesses

Industry committee  As I said, we did spend a lot of money on making sure that the safety precautions were in place, and we thought it was an appropriate time to remove the temporary premium, which was always explained to people to be temporary.