Thank you, Madam Chair. I recognize that, perhaps, there's a debate about whether 15-year-olds deserve a living wage. Perhaps there's a debate about whether service industry workers, when they have tips, should make less than $18 an hour, but I know there are actually thousands of people on this program, many of whom were grocery store workers, people we deemed essential, and now, with the passing of this budget, the Department of Finance has decided that they do not deserve to make $18 an hour or that it's not a priority to top up their wages.
I know ECE has a number of different wage subsidy programs kicking around. They do different things, and they cater to different labour forces. I think that this is a priority area of, essentially, the working poor. If you're on income assistance, it doesn't make sense to go and get one of these jobs right now. You just don't make that much money.
I guess that I will leave it at that, and I would like to see the Department of Finance find a way to maybe extend this program, and if that has to work with ECE, then that's okay. If we have to take servers and 15-year-olds out, that's okay, but I think that the passing of this budget in the middle of the pandemic for $4 million means that 2,000 workers were making $18 an hour, and I think this is one of the most frustrating budget lines in the whole thing. That's a comment. Thank you, Madam Chair.