Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee. It's a pleasure to be here today.
The Fitness Industry Council of Canada represents over 6,000 fitness facilities across this great country. They range from single boutiques to national chains and non-profit and municipal facilities. Pre-COVID, the fitness industry employed 150,000 people and served six million Canadians. Our industry has been severely decimated by COVID-19 due to closures and restrictions across the country. Today we have laid off half of our employees and lost half of our membership.
The majority of fitness facilities have been closed over the last year despite worldwide data showing that fitness facilities are not transmission sites of COVID-19. Facilities are operating at somewhere between 10% and 50% of their revenue. The wage and rent subsidies have been very much appreciated by our industry. We still experience severe financial hardships. We continue to have small business loans, equipment leases, property taxes and debts from PPE. As well, our industry had to very quickly invest in and create online platforms in order to continue to keep Canadians active at home. Facilities are losing currently $15,000 to $30,000 per month per facility.
We have a lot of fitness brands and facilities that were opened the year before the pandemic hit. Those facilities are not able to benefit from some of the subsidies we have. I want to bring that to your attention today.
Fitness facilities in their current state across this country have anywhere from two to six weeks of remaining capital and have taken on significant debt. They have defaulted on their leases and their loans. Currently, looking across this country, we see that about a third of fitness facilities have already closed. Some have gone in silence. Some have gone publicly. We know that a third of facilities have closed. We will see that number double as our industry bears the weight of reopening.
We foresee that once Canadians are fully vaccinated, it will take about six to nine months for our industry to just gain the three million members we lost. To offset the debts and the other costs that we have now taken on, we need to increase our membership base by 20%, meaning that we have to serve 7.2 million Canadians. We project that this will take an additional six to nine months. Overall, the fitness industry is 18 months away from any type of return to the February 2020 state of the industry. That will take us to February of 2023. This is a three-year critical financial impact on our industry.
As we all know, the federal budget was released yesterday. As much as there are great initiatives included for mental health, we as the fitness industry are disappointed that our proposal was not considered in the 2021 budget. I do believe that as much as we did include mental health in the budget, we really missed an opportunity to help Canadians' mental, physical and social health. This is where fitness and fitness facilities come in.
On January 28 I had the great pleasure to present to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland an economic recovery plan for the fitness industry. Our proposal was to have fitness memberships and services considered as a medical expense on our personal taxes. That's line 33099. Our proposal included financial modelling that actually showed projected health care savings ranging from $500 million to $2 billion a year by combatting physical inactivity in Canada. Our proposal supported the employment of young people, the recovery of our industry and the health of Canadians. We were endorsed and backed by Heart and Stroke, Diabetes Canada and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society.
Why does fitness even matter for Canadians right now? Well, the reality is that exercise is medicine. There's so much I wish I had time to share with you. Exercise is known to reduce hypertension and cancer and diabetes by up to 60%, stroke by 50%, and Alzheimer's by 40%. Exercise is just as effective as antidepressants.
We know that we are in a physical inactivity pandemic, and this was echoed by the World Health Organization in 2018. We are fighting COVID as a country, and the access to physical activity right now is at risk. We are on the verge of losing two-thirds of fitness facilities, eliminating Canadians' access.
What is the solution? We need to make this tax deductible. As a country that funds the research that teaches and supports exercise as medicine, we now have to give Canadians the opportunity to benefit from exercise as medicine. This is Canada's opportunity to gain global attention and recognition for incenting the people of Canada to get active, to make a bold statement that physical activity is fundamental to our health care system.
The time is now. We are losing our fitness industry, but together we can create change and empower Canadians' physical, mental and social health.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.