The honourable minister.
I want to highlight some of the initiatives we have put forward to assist small businesses. The Canada emergency wage subsidy covers 75% of the wages of employees, and that way they can maintain their jobs. We've also put forward the enhanced work-sharing program. It's an option for businesses to pay their employees. On top of that, I want to highlight the Canada emergency business account, which has issued 590,000 loans. As the Minister of Finance recently mentioned, we've deferred GST and HST and customs duty payments for businesses for the next three months.
Mr. Chair, Robert owns a cleaning products company in Prince Albert. He tells me that Canadian custodians and building service contractors are not purchasing Canadian-made disinfectants because very few are included in the federal approval list for COVID-19, even though Canada produces many products that Health Canada has certified as disinfectants. Why is the Liberal government not prioritizing the approval of Canadian-made products?
Mr. Chair, that assertion is not correct. In fact, we have been working very closely with producers of Canadian products as well as with our colleagues at Innovation, Science and Economic Development to make sure that Canadian companies have what they need to very quickly move through the approval process. Health Canada has accelerated this process, and most companies can get approved in one to seven days. Of course, there is an iterative process that requires companies to ensure that a product is safe for use in Canada.