Good afternoon, everyone.
Before I start my presentation, I want to thank the honourable members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for the important work they do on behalf of all Canadians.
I also want to thank the Government of Canada for initiating and activating the numerous programs which have been a lifeline for our industry, including the Canada employment wage subsidy, the Canada emergency response benefit and many others.
My name is Scott Ford. I'm the executive director of SaskTel Centre, which is a 15,000 seat arena in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. I have 30 years of experience in the sports and entertainment industry as a venue operator and promoter. I'm also a member of numerous industries and associations.
SaskTel Centre is our facility. We are a non-profit corporation, which operates under Saskatchewan Place Association Inc. We operate independently from the City of Saskatoon.
We have three sports teams: the Saskatoon Blades of the Western Hockey League, the Saskatchewan Rush of the National Lacrosse League and the Saskatchewan Rattlers of the Canadian Elite Basketball League. For the past 15 years, our facility has ranked in the top 200 busiest arenas in the world, which we're very proud of. We're probably the smallest market that has made that list.
I can tell you our story here in Saskatoon. On March 11, 2020, a decision was made to cancel the 2020 Juno awards because COVID-19 was identified in Canada and a case was confirmed in Saskatchewan. I was the chair of the Saskatoon Juno host organizing committee. It was one of the first events in Canada that was cancelled.
What followed was the cancellation of all three of our sports teams' entire sports seasons and all of our 2020 and 2021 concerts and family shows. These cancellations not only affected my market and my building. Across Canada, related sports and entertainment venues were shutting down and all events were being cancelled.
Almost two years later, the COVID pandemic is still devastating Canada's live entertainment industry. The live sports and entertainment industry was the first to shut down and certainly it will be the last to open without restrictions.
With restrictions on gathering disallowing fans in the stands, to continue to offer an important service to our community, SaskTel Centre provided the following services. We ran the SaskTel Centre Hockey League, and numerous Saskatoon hockey teams could play out of our building for practice purposes only. We hosted the Saskatchewan Health Authority's influenza clinic. We operated a drive-in movie theatre in our parking lot. We produced a drive-in concert, which featured Brett Kissel and sold out three performances. We held the first indigenous vaccination clinic hosted by the Saskatoon Tribal Council, which ran for three months. It was a huge success. We also used the time to provide some technical upgrades to our facility, which included a new Wi-Fi system and POS system.
To date, SaskTel Centre has lost $5 million. During various periods of time, we've laid off approximately half of our full-time staff and all of our part-time staff. In August 2021, we began bringing back staff, but still have not filled all of our positions. Sports and entertainment venues across Canada will tell you a similar story.
The devastation goes much further than our internal operations, though. The live event ecosystem includes everything that services the live event tourism industry, and all have felt the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since July 11, 2021, Saskatchewan has been allowed to host events and large group gatherings, provided we follow the conditions of the provincial public health order—