Mr. Chair, the following three questions are from constituents in my riding, so hopefully, I'll get some good answers for them. The first one I'll talk about is Rick. He owns a small business, a local bowling alley, in Melfort. It's a family-owned operation, so he doesn't meet the payroll threshold for the wage subsidy benefit, nor does he qualify for any other announced loans or grants. There are businesses right across Canada that are in similar situations. Is the minister suggesting that they lie to get the funds, or will they make some changes so they qualify?
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?