Good morning, everyone.
My name is Thomas Le Page-Gouin, and I am the executive director of Camp le Manoir and the Centre écologique de Port‑au‑Saumon, which are located in the Charlevoix region. For some years now, I have also been president of the Association des camps du Québec, which represents all the camps in the province.
I would like to address two very important topics.
First of all, I want to discuss the Canada summer jobs program. This program is vitally important for the survival of organizations such as ours, as it affects most of the camps that are offered in Quebec.
We have observed a decline in available funding in recent years, since the special measures were introduced during the COVID‑19 pandemic. That decline has hit organizations like ours extremely hard. It's not that it has become harder for young people to find jobs. On the contrary, I think they now have more choices. However, it is virtually impossible for them to function without the financial assistance provided through the Canada summer jobs program. And that's not counting the quality of the experience that we enable young people to acquire. I believe that these jobs are extremely rewarding and formative for young people.
The second topic I want to address is infrastructure. Our sites are very old. Most were built in the 1960s. There are many programs designed to develop new facilities, but virtually none intended to renovate existing infrastructure or to maintain it in good condition. This is a problem.
Consequently, we need programs designed specifically to improve the quality of infrastructure that we already have, instead of letting it deteriorate and having to shut down camps.
Those are the major issues for our industry that we would like to bring to your attention.
Thank you.