I think the issue is that this is a view which relies on people generally not taking advantage of the system.

Sure, the money they receive goes into the economy, but that money is being put on a Visa card paid for by the entire population of the country. The entire population may not be happy that they’re spending money without a job to backfill the money being spent (causing debt). I think people that are out of work should have a safety net, but there needs to be an acknowledgement that not everyone is honest and hardworking, it isn’t just that if we throw enough money at this problem society will suddenly have no issues.

I have a family member and their partner who are basically ‘taking the summer off’ and not looking for work because they can since cerb will keep them afloat. At my wife’s old office, they can’t get the staff come back to work because they want to stay home and collect Cerb rather than work, even if it’s slightly less money; the office isn’t running properly and is impacting the income of the people who are working (less throughout).

There are people who should be on EI right now, but I think we’ve cast the net a bit too wide and too long. I’m obviously not an expert, but I’ve thought for a while that if we forced masks to be work (with enforcement) and most people exercised a reasonable level of caution regarding hygiene, we could have opened up more aggressively with relative safety. The stance of not having people wear face coverings from the start was a huge misstep.