I need to just take 10 seconds and actually go back to the genesis of the program, which was that, when Canada, the federal government, ruled out this CERB program for individuals who were negatively impacted, lost their jobs as a result of COVID-19, and they set a floor that would provide money to everyone, $2,000 into the pockets of people who had been negatively impacted, there very quickly arose, particularly in southern Canada, the fact that a lot of front-line workers were now incentivized to leave what might have been considered, at least perceptually, a higher risk profession, whether that was, in fact, true or not. It became a real concern in the labour market that we were going to lose really some essential service workers and front-line workers.
That wasn't quite the case in the Northwest Territories. More of our health services and long-term care services are provided by the GNWT, which pays significantly more. While we wanted to participate in the program, the motivation for it here became really one of putting money into the hands of residents for whatever their needs might be. Whether that is to pay off debt or just increase spending in the community or childcare, anyone who was working, we sort of deemed as being essential for the purposes of this program. It really wasn't, at least in terms of our modelling, tied to minimum wage.
At this point, this program is not going to be some sort of pilot that the Department of Finance is using in terms of modelling for future for minimum wage changes. It really is quite specific to COVID-19, to acknowledge that there are people at the front lines, whether that is in grocery stores or otherwise, who might be making below a certain cut-off in an effort to participate in this federal program with as wide a berth as we could find in the Northwest Territories for as many employees as we could find in the Northwest Territories.