Thank you very much. I thought you had forgotten about us, but it's a good idea to keep restaurants as a dessert.
I'm Olivier Bourbeau, vice-president, federal and Quebec affairs, Restaurants Canada. I have also brought along Restaurants Canada's chief economist, Chris Elliott. He's going to participate in the Q and A.
Our association represents a $95 billion industry, made up of more than 98,000 establishments from coast to coast to coast who serve about 22 million customers every day and contribute 4% of the country's GDP. At least, this was the case before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. We estimate that at least 10% of our restaurant operations across the country have had to permanently close down due to the ongoing economic and public health crisis. That's about 10,000 establishments that are now gone for good.
Here's a statistic that's even more concerning: According to the April labour force survey from Statistics Canada, more than two-thirds of the 500,000 jobs that were lost during the pandemic and are still missing from the Canadian economy are in the food services sector. The measures contained in the long-awaited budget we're discussing today are not only of vital importance to the survival of the rest of our hardest-hit sector, but are also key to ensuring that restaurants have what they need to continue feeding Canada's economic recovery and bringing Canadians back to work.
Restaurants and the many small and medium-sized businesses that make up the Canadian food services sector are an absolutely critical pillar of our culture, economy and local communities. Something that most Canadians do not realize is that at least 95¢ in every dollar we spend at a restaurant usually goes directly back into our communities. That's because, even during the best of times, a typical Canadian restaurant has a pre-tax profit margin of less than 5%. No other sector keeps so little in profit, and returns so much to our economy. Ninety-five per cent of all restaurant revenue typically goes toward local jobs; purchases from Canadian farmers, food and beverage producers, and other food services industry suppliers; contributions to charity and more. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has stretched their resilience to the limits.
Given the exceptional challenges still facing our hardest-hit industry, we are calling for a sector-specific restaurant survival support package. Our key recommendations are, first and foremost, an exemption from the scheduled phase-out of the rent and wage subsidies for the highly affected food services sector and an extension of these vital programs for restaurants until at least April 2022. This extension is needed, as our survey data have consistently revealed that restaurant operators expect they will need a year to return back to profitability.
We are also asking for the option for any restaurant operators eligible for the wage subsidy to be able to apply for added funding through the Canada recovery hiring program so that they can hire new workers in addition to keeping the ones they already have on payroll with the wage subsidy.
Our members also tell us they need partial forgiveness of all government-backed loans and an extension of the application deadlines for existing programs. Currently, loan forgiveness is only available through CEBA. We would like to see this as well for HASCAP and any other loan program the government introduces to help businesses recover from the pandemic. Restaurant operators simply can't afford to take on any more debt to pay for the debt they've already had to incur to pay for previous pandemic debt.
Finally, the business operators in our hardest-hit industry need tax credits to defer the significant costs they've incurred from COVID-19 health and safety expenditures over the course of the pandemic. Our survey data have shown us that eight out of 10 food services businesses have been operating at a loss or barely breaking even throughout the entire pandemic. In fact, nearly half of all restaurant operations have consistently been losing money for more than a year. This was the case even after dining rooms reopened across all jurisdictions last summer, and even once the federal rent and wage subsidies and other forms of government support became available. Essentially, these emergency aid subsidies have been providing our hardest-hit industry with vital needed life support. Even with Canadians now looking forward to hopefully enjoying a one-dose summer, we know that this won't mean restaurants can operate at 100% capacity. We expect that physical distancing requirements will remain in place throughout the summer, at least, and maybe even into the fall and winter, and probably even more in Ontario—we never know.
We appreciate that the government has listened to our industry and is extending the critically necessary rent and wage subsidies beyond June. This was an important first step in this budget. However, if this budget is implemented without any changes, we are essentially pulling out the support ramp right before relaunch and putting half of our restaurants at risk of being left behind.
Losing half of our restaurants would not only be a huge loss for our main streets, but we would also be leaving nearly half a million Canadians without work. Restaurants are key to bringing these jobs back, but we need the government supports to help us get there.
Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to answering any questions you might have.