Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all of the witnesses for being here today. Any of the witnesses can answer my questions. Whoever feels they are best suited to answer them, that's fine by me.
One of the things we discovered here today, very early on.... Obviously, $7 billion is a lot of money, and we saw the lack of safeguards put in initially with this program. Today we're unable to determine where any of that money is coming from. We do know that billions and billions of dollars in revenue in this country pour in from the energy sector. We also know that this government is trying to kill that sector. There's likely a good case that money from oil and gas and other revenue is probably enabling some of this spending, despite the constant cry of a climate crisis.
As for where my first question lies, the Canada Revenue Agency, during a hearing of this finance committee in July 2020, advised that both the CERB and the CEBA were being targeted, could potentially be targeted, by criminal organizations. Today I'd like to know, from whichever witness feels best to answer the question, what directives were given to department officials by government for the drafting of this new bill based on and taking into account what was foretold in July 2020 at the Standing Committee on Finance.