Thank you, Ms. Lee.
Secondly, members of the committee, we need an export designation to recover long term.
Also important is long-term support. Our internal projections indicate that the industry will need two or three years to fully recover from the current crisis, even if the Canada-United States border reopens in the next few months.
All products sold at duty-free stores are for export only and are immediately exported to the United States. However, due to an unclear federal designation, the products sold at Canadian duty-free stores are erroneously subject to domestic policies that put the stores at a massive competitive disadvantage with U.S duty-free stores and retailers, which ultimately results in significant revenue loss here in Canada.
We are asking this committee and the federal government to create special overarching legislation that will allow our stores to come out of this crisis with an export sector designation with all the rights and privileges to facilitate our recovery post-crisis and level the playing field with American counterparts, our only competitors. This small but powerful legislative initiative should have paramountcy and be instructive over other legislation that encumbers our ability to compete as an export market. We have submitted the full plan for duty-free export designation to each committee member and to the committee.
We would like to thank you for your time. We are ready to welcome any questions afterwards.
Thank you.