Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his intervention on behalf of small businesses in Canada.
To break from my prepared remarks for a moment, let me first extend my empathy to the business owners he mentioned who are struggling in his own community. He can rest assured that I am having similar conversations with businesses and have been having them from the outset of this pandemic.
However, the suggestion, implicitly or explicitly, that we have abandoned small businesses is disingenuous in the extreme. The hon. member knows that to help keep Canadians safe, we decided to make it more affordable for businesses to do the right thing and shut down or reduce traffic through their premises.
We did through Bill C-9, which just received royal assent a few days ago. It extends the wage subsidy to next summer and, importantly, creates the new Canada emergency rent subsidy. This is going to provide a subsidy of up to 65% to businesses that have lost revenue as a result of this pandemic and up to 90%, with the additional lockdown support, to those that have been ordered to close as a result of a public health order.
With respect to the wage subsidy, it is contributing directly to help 3.8 million Canadian workers stay on the payroll. It does not just help them keep getting paid. It also helps their employers retain and rehire them if they had to furlough them to make ends meet throughout this pandemic.
We have advanced the Canada emergency response benefit, which self-employed people were eligible for. It has helped keep food on the table for nine million Canadians. We have advanced the Canada emergency business account to provide interest-free loans, partially forgivable loans, and we are now increasing them from $40,000 to $60,000, up to $20,000 of which will be forgivable.
The reality is that we have done what we can to meet many needs of many businesses. We have even established the regional relief and recovery fund for businesses that did not qualify for some of the supports I mentioned.
While I appreciate fully that the hon. member has the best of intentions in trying to defend the small businesses in his community, I do not believe it is appropriate, and in fact I think it is ludicrous, to suggest our government has abandoned small businesses, as we have launched more support for them than any other government in the history of our country.
Small businesses should know they have a friend in our government. We have been there for them from day one of this pandemic and we will be there for them until it is over.