Thank you, and good afternoon. My name is Tania Lee. I'm an owner-operator of a small land border duty-free store in Sarnia, Ontario. We service travellers crossing into Port Huron, Michigan. With me today is Philippe Bachand, a store owner-operator in Philipsburg, Quebec. He is a fellow member of the FDFA board of directors.
Our Canadian land border association is made up of 33 stores across the Canadian border. Our businesses were effectively shut down over a year ago when the border closed in March 2020. We are an export business that can no longer export. We are the hardest-hit businesses in this country. Unlike other businesses, our stores cannot pivot to other business models. By regulation, all of our duty-free sales are export sales. We cannot sell online to domestic travellers unless they are physically crossing the border to the U.S.A. We cannot sell our inventory into the Canadian domestic market. Other tourism businesses, such as local B and Bs that have lost their U.S. visitors, can turn to domestic Canadian tourists. Local restaurants can turn to curbside pickup. Duty-free stores have no option but to wait for a fully open border.
We have been very supportive of government actions to protect the health of Canadians, but our industry is now sustaining year-over-year decreases of over 94%. We need help to survive and to recover. We have been able to access some federal programs, such as the wage and rent subsidies. However, due to our unique position on the border, some of these programs do not apply to us.
This is an industry that employs upward of 2,500 people in very small border communities. After a year of very significant losses to our industry, the long-term viability of our industry is at risk. We have two solutions that we ask you to support and to champion.
First, in budget 2021 a $500-million tourism relief fund was announced. We are asking your support to channel some of this fund into a duty-free relief fund to help us stay alive and to recover, and to allow grants of up to $200,000 per store, with a total maximum budget allocation of $6.6 million.