COVID-19 Pandemic Committee on May 5th, 2020

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

On a point of order—

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

That's why we're considering our approach. Of course—

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

I have a point of order.

[The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Minister Morneau, please wait a moment. A member is raising a point of order.

Mr. Kurek, do you have a point of order? You have to unmute yourself.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Yes. It's that the translation is at the same volume as the minister.

[The Acting Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

You'll have to put yourself on English. Rather, the minister has to put himself on French.

[Bill Morneau, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Sorry. I was on the English channel.

We know that the people who need the Canada emergency response benefit must have access to it. That's why we're considering the challenges each time. If I receive a letter, I'll look at it. Once we have a response, we'll pass it directly on to the member.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

The next question will go to Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

This question is for the tourism minister.

The tourism ministry was one of the first and hardest-hit industries during this crisis, yet despite the Prime Minister's announcement over three weeks ago now of a plan to bring forward a tourism-specific aid package to help the businesses who employ millions of unemployed Canadians who work in tourism, there's still been nothing from this government. When will the government finally act to provide help to this nearly crippled industry?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages]

Mr. Chair, obviously we know that the tourism sector has been deeply impacted. I had the chance to talk to many of the leaders in the sector, and clearly there's a lot of anxiety.

We also had the chance to work with all the G20 ministers of tourism all together, and we know we have to act—

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

We'll now go back to Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

I didn't really get much of an answer there. I hear a lot about talking and not much on action. Tourism-based communities like the ones in Banff and Canmore, which I represent, are tourism-based economies and have unemployment rates of 85% or higher. They also don't qualify for a lot of the programs because they're seasonal businesses and make most or all of their revenues for the year from May to October, so they're at risk of losing their entire season.

I have a couple of very specific questions.

Will the government consider making changes to the programs to make sure that seasonal businesses can get help?

What does the government plan to do to help the tourism industry recover after the pandemic?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Thank you.

Obviously, the tourism sector has access to many measures, including the CEBA account, the $40,000 account. They also have access to the wage subsidy. They have access to rent relief. They will be having access also to funding through the regional development agencies, and we'll be coming up with the details soon.

Of course, in my colleague's riding of Banff, which is a fantastic place and a tourism gem, they will have access to the support through WD, western economic diversification.

If there are particular cases you would like to raise with me, I would be more than happy to talk to you to see how, on the ground, we can help the tourism operators.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Chair, clearly the tourism minister hasn't been listening. She says she's talking to the industry. She's not hearing their concerns. What she just said does not address many of the concerns they have about being seasonal industries. It doesn't address anything about their concerns about the hard economic recovery they'll have after the pandemic.

Let's try another minister and see if we can get some answers.

Another industry that's very hard hit in my province and my riding is the oil and gas industry. It's another industry the Prime Minister has promised to help, but there hasn't been anything. Clearly there's a pattern here. The only so-called assistance there's been to help hurting Albertans in the oil patch has been measures to speed up the death of the industry that they work in.

Will the Liberal government ever show any concern for Albertans? Will they bring forward a plan to preserve Canadian jobs? Will they put forward a plan to ensure the use of Canadian oil before oil coming in from places like Saudi Arabia?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, Minister of Natural Resources]

In fact, Mr. Chair, the federal government has taken several steps in recent weeks that will meaningfully support workers and communities that depend on this industry. We have the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which covers 75% of an employee's wages for the employer. We have more liquidity for oil and gas companies through new loans of $15 million to $60 million from the Business Development Bank of Canada.

We continue to step forward in our response to the impacts of COVID-19 on my province here in Newfoundland and Labrador and on Alberta and Saskatchewan. These three provinces are being hit by two crises at the same time, a crisis of demand for oil and gas on the world markets and of course a crisis of public health with COVID-19.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Chair, a lot of these things we're hearing about aren't going to actually help the industry to recover. What we need to see is the government give the industry and the private sector the opportunity to succeed. Maybe what they could do is consider expediting the approval of billions of dollars of private sector projects that would put thousands and thousands of Canadians back to work.

Will the government consider looking at ways that we can expedite projects? Will they look at ways that we can encourage the use of Canadian oil before the use of oil coming in from places like Saudi Arabia?

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Chair, we have been working with our provincial partners. We have been working with businesses of all sizes in the oil and gas industry. We have been working with labour, concentrating on workers and concentrating on the companies that support those jobs to make sure that they remain whole and those jobs will be there for those workers.

We're particularly proud of our orphan wells program, which was launched by the Alberta government in conjunction with us. It was launched last week. I am pleased to inform this House that the uptake on applications for that program is significantly higher than even we expected.

[The Chair, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

That's all the time we have for questions today.

I want to thank all the members for taking part.

The committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon.

The committee stands adjourned until tomorrow at noon.

Thank you.