Thank you, Mr. Chair. We recognize the challenges that small business owners in particular, as well as landlords, are facing during the course of COVID-19. We have worked together with the provinces to come up with an approach that would provide an incentive for landlords to give a rent reduction to commercial tenants. We opened that as of Monday. Of course, we recognize that this is a jurisdiction of the provinces, so it will be up to the provinces to consider the next steps, if any, in this regard. We are looking toward seeing many landlords sign up for this. I would like to take this opportunity to encourage landlords to sign up for this, which not only gives them a sense of security but also their tenants.
That's a no, so the government is still failing small businesses. If small business owners can't make June rent, thousands will have to close permanently. If the government won't negotiate a moratorium, will it at least let tenants apply for the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program so they can get help with 50% of their rent?
Again, Mr. Chair, I think it's important that we have clarity of understanding of jurisdictions. We have worked with the provinces in this regard. The federal government is working through the CMHC to provide support to landlords, which is conditional on their working with their tenants, but of course, it is a provincial area of jurisdiction, so any further actions and any decisions on restricting evictions are in the provincial jurisdiction and not ones that the federal government is able to move forward on.
We'll now go to Ms. Gazan, Winnipeg Centre.