Finance committee  We're very pleased to see that funding in there. It's $158 million in total—$108 million to the regional development agencies, which will support local regional tourism development, and $50 million to support business events. As you may know, business events.... We were closed for a period of time in Canada.

Finance committee  I would be delighted to expand on that. A few years ago, we worked with the government and the minister of immigration at the time to create what's called a bridge program. Effectively what this does is it supports new Canadians who arrive and can have a somewhat random experience in terms of where they end up working, whether they end up working and how quickly that process happens.

Finance committee  We work with a partner, Tourism HR Canada, and we already have all the infrastructure set up. We have relationships with all the settlement agencies. There's an intake process. When new Canadians arrive, we would do an assessment of their skills and we would be able to easily place them into a variety of work.

Finance committee  Exactly. It doesn't discriminate. It can be anybody who comes, regardless of their skill level.

Finance committee  Any time there is cost introduced into the system, it makes it more expensive to travel. That's obviously not a good thing. I will say that when we look at the global traveller across the world, almost every data point suggests they are planning to travel in the immediate future, notwithstanding rising costs.

Finance committee  Yes, we did see slow development, certainly, over the COVID period. It has been slow to come back, and that is predominantly being driven by high input costs. The cost of development.... Development charges can be up to 40% of a total project. Those are municipal issues. The cost of building is significant, so we are seeing more multi-use facilities, and we have a hotel capacity problem all across the country as we speak.

Finance committee  Thank you. I actually don't know the exact number either, but I would advocate that anything helps. I would love to come back to your first question about what we can do and what is broken. To me, it's very simple. If you look at the permanent economic strains and the ways people are coming in—that's the 500,000; the new high-water mark for immigration—it's a points system.

Finance committee  Housing is a major concern, for sure. I would look to the committee and its leadership, and across government to continue to work on that issue. Our industry is getting creative about how we solve that, and building additional staff accommodations, but that gets really hard in downtown Toronto and Vancouver.

Finance committee  I think it's too soon for that still. Certainly we're engaged with government on the rollout there, but we're not sure how that money is going to roll out. It is for regional development. I think the issue you're referring to is on the debt side, which is still a major consideration for sure.

Finance committee  I think the statistic that should stun the committee is that 47% of Canadian hotels today, in our off-season, are pulling inventory out of the market. That's in our off-season, and that's because we can't service that demand. What a missed opportunity. When we think about global travel demand, it's at an all-time high.

Finance committee  Thank you for inviting me to join you today. My name is Susie Grynol, and I am the president and CEO of the Hotel Association of Canada. Three years ago, tourism was in a total lockdown. Our industry was devastated. We lost a million workers in the first two months of COVID.

Finance committee  If there are no businesses, there are no jobs. They go hand in hand. This bill not only keeps businesses intact, but it provides for a subsidy for employment, which will allow us to maintain as many of our workers as possible over this winter season, so that they are with us in our time for recovery.

Finance committee  There's an opportunity for improvement in that respect. There are independent contractors within the sector, for sure. They have not been immune to the deep devastation. It doesn't apply directly to the Hotel Association, which I represent. I'm the coalition chair of the hardest-hit businesses.

Finance committee  I don't think I would call it wage inflation. Wage inflation is part of it, but we have experienced inflation all across the board. Insurance costs in some cases have gone up by up to 400%. We have been affected by the supply chain, so that has an effect on getting materials into the hotels, as well as on food prices, etc.

Finance committee  I'm not sure I understand the question.