Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-2, an act to provide further support in response to COVID-19. This bill will implement some significant support measures, including measures for the sectors hardest hit by the pandemic and for the workers and small businesses that have really been struggling, for example those in the tourism and hospitality sectors.
There is no denying that COVID‑19 has had devastating consequences for workers and business owners in these sectors. They saw a nearly 50% drop in revenues, down from $104.4 billion in 2019 to $53.4 billion in 2020; in that same period, the number of jobs directly connected to the tourism industry dropped by 41%. Preliminary projections put revenues for summer 2021 at about 50% of the figures for the summer of 2019.
Despite these challenges, owners of tourism-based businesses and their employees have all proved to be tenacious and resilient, ensuring that their services will be available when the crisis is well and truly over. Many of them have said that the assistance from the federal government is the only reason why the workers in the sector are able to continue putting a roof over their heads and food on their tables. However, we know that many stakeholders in the tourism and hospitality industry are still struggling. I am talking about hotels, airports, travel agencies, cruise lines, theatres and restaurants, which are vital.
Restaurants make our main streets what they are, and members have heard me say this many times in the House. I have spoken directly with countless impacted restaurant operators, who tell me just how hard the last 20 months have been, how they were the first to close and often the last to reopen and how even now many of them are only partially open.
As parliamentary secretary for the Minister of Small Business in the last mandate, I represented the government on many different working groups, including the Restaurant Revival Working Group, where I worked closely with Restaurants Canada and heard first-hand from independent restaurateurs across our great country. The bill we have before us today responds directly to their plea for continued support from the federal government as we continue to fight COVID-19.
I now want to speak in concrete terms about the support that Bill C-2 will provide hard-hit sectors through two new main components.
First, the tourism and hospitality recovery program will support hotels, tour operators, travel agencies, restaurants and many other businesses by providing them with wage and rent subsidies of up to 75%. Second, the hardest-hit business recovery program will provide subsidies that could cover 50% of the costs of businesses that have faced deep and enduring losses. The government is also proposing to extend the Canada recovery hiring program until May 2022 at a new rate of 50%, with the possibility of extension if needed.
I find it very important to lay out some of the details of what is in the bill we are debating today because it often seems that some members in this place would like to debate something else entirely. For example, on Friday, I believe it was the member for Carleton, in his 20-minute speech on Bill C-2, mentioned inflation 33 times. That is about once every 36 seconds. How many times did he mention tourism, hospitality or small businesses? It was zero times, none at all.