Thanks so much.
First and foremost, thank you for the extraordinary speed with which government has put measures in place to address this crisis. Our thanks extend to the many women and men within government at all levels working towards solutions.
Parliament was never designed to deal with an all-encompassing crisis of this magnitude, but only Parliament can take the bold steps needed to address the situation.
TIAC represents the entire sector of the travel economy. We support our industry in its entirety, those who are on this panel and those who are not.
The travel economy is the proverbial canary in the coal mine. We were the first to experience extreme, severe and immediate impacts. The situation is dire. Many businesses are closed. Many will never reopen. SMEs and seasonal businesses, including indigenous tourism and outfitters, have not yet opened for the high season and will likely lose their entire year's revenues. Festivals, sporting events, conferences and other venues where people gather are cancelled. Countless attractions people flock to year after year are closed. Second-language international students won't be coming.
We're calling on government to take bold measures to provide sector-specific relief to those hit hardest. Other countries have stepped up to support their travel economies. This industry is an economic driver for communities across the country that depend on it for jobs and economic growth. Without it, the impact on local economies will be disastrous.
The timing of this pandemic is all the more catastrophic for our sector. Unlike other businesses, tourism garners the bulk of its revenues during the high season between May and September. We need the right relief measures immediately accessible so that businesses can stay afloat.
We appreciate the programs announced so far—we asked for most of them—but there are significant gaps in the eligibility criteria and design. It's a work in progress, so I'm going to focus on three.
The wage subsidy is a great idea but it is not designed, necessarily, to address our industry's needs. Most businesses cannot access it. They've laid off a lot of their staff. You cannot show 30% or even 15% revenue loss in March and April when you open only in May. Some likely won't open until much later, if at all. If businesses are already closed, this measure won't help. Many businesses are owner-operated. If they can't get support, they won't be able to hire staff in the first place because they'll be out of business. Right now owners don't qualify for that particular initiative.
The Canada emergency business account, the $40,000 loan program, is also not accessible to many tourism operators, as many small rural and seasonal businesses don't meet the minimum $50,000 payroll criterion. The business credit availability program is designed to provide an operating line of credit as a one-year term loan of up to $5 million. Again, for many tourism businesses that depend on the summer for their entire annual revenues, this is just one more debt they can't possibly repay within a year's time.
One thing the industry needs is liquidity to meet expenses so businesses can reopen when this crisis is over. For many operators, that may mean next year, after losing their entire year's revenue. This is why we ask that you consider some fine-tuning under the small and medium-sized enterprise loan and guarantee program that would address the industry's top concern, which is liquidity.
We believe these changes would help solve the current problems tourism businesses face when trying to access the BCAP. With full government backing for loans of up to $6.25 million processed through chartered banks and credit unions rather than BDC, you could establish a forgivable portion of these loans for amounts paid for fixed costs—like wages, rent, mortgage, insurance, utilities—for a period until revenue reaches normal monthly activity.
A number of other countries have put specific tourism packages in place, recognizing the contributions the sector makes to overall economies and jobs, as well as understanding that many businesses garner most, if not all, of their revenues over a short period of time. Other countries have turned their attention to recovery, also, specifically designed to support tourism. We urge the federal government to find solutions that will address the particular needs of this sector. We must develop a robust recovery plan very soon so we can bounce back when the crisis is over.
Tourism has been an economic driver and job creator for this country, with one in 10 jobs from this sector and contributions to the Canadian economy of $102 billion. When this is over, we'll be competing with countries that are ahead of us in terms of relief programs and recovery planning.
We need to be ready to go, because tourism can and will contribute significantly to the recovery of the Canadian economy when this is over.
Thank you very much.