Ladies and gentlemen of the finance committee, thank you for having me.
My name is Aly Hamam. I am the co-founder of Tahinis Restaurants, a chain with nine restaurants in Ontario and growing. My family and I grew up in Egypt and decided to move to Canada after the Arab Spring of 2011. My father was a hard-working math teacher and had worked his entire life, only to watch the money he had in the Egyptian banks get devalued by 65% against the U.S. dollar over the course of a few years. Inflation is a problem that's affecting all Canadians right now—businesses and families alike. Even though we won't see the debasement against the U.S. dollar, which is also debasing at a fast rate, we can see the value of our money going down against the costs of housing, education for our kids, education for our families, a good steak, our grocery bills and our retirement.
I'm here to propose to the committee the idea of embracing the new technology of money called Bitcoin. It's fixed in supply, which gives it integrity. It's digital in nature, which makes it native to our modern digital economy. It's secured by energy and the largest computer network in history, which makes it safe and reliable. It's decentralized and not controlled by any one person, company or country, which makes it apolitical. We're in a tough yet critical time in Canada, but I'm here to be constructive, not pessimistic. I'm here to offer to the committee ideas and positive changes that we can make to grow our country's productivity.
Our leading industries in Canada are energy and finance. Both can be integrated with Bitcoin. Let's not focus all of our energy on trying to fix an old system. Instead, let's build and integrate with a new parallel system as well. With Bitcoin, we can do that. In the energy sector, we can sell the excess energy to the Bitcoin network for 30 to 40 cents per kilowatt hour. That's a lot better than letting it go to waste or selling it to the U.S. for three cents per kilowatt hour. Let's offer financial incentives to energy producers to mine Bitcoin with this excess energy. With our finance industry, we can integrate all of our banks, fintech companies, insurance companies and tech companies into this leading-edge technology of modern finance. This will not hinder or hurt the old way we do finance. This is a parallel system that could be built on top of the old one to improve it. We could do this by providing clear regulations to the Bitcoin industry and better accounting rules that would help nourish innovation, not stifle it. We could do this while still protecting Canadian citizens against scams and Ponzi schemes in the wider crypto industry.
The Bitcoin network is being worked on by the brightest engineers all over the world, from Canada, the U.S., Europe and Australia. This is mainly western technology, and we should all be proud of that. Every software engineer and Bitcoin company is working on making the network harder, stronger and faster, and when they succeed, it benefits everyone on the network. Let's work on becoming the country that benefits from this global co-operation.
A good example of a country that's doing this right now is El Salvador. They recently did everything that I'm suggesting today at this committee. They are mining Bitcoin with renewable geothermal energy; they have made Bitcoin legal tender and embraced the technology to help bank all of their citizens. Today, more Salvadorans have Bitcoin wallets than have bank accounts. More money is flowing into the hands of local citizens than to intermediaries like Western Union and Visa, which used to suck the country and its citizens dry. North of $400 million per year is going to the Salvadorans.
This past week, an Arizona state senator proposed a bill that would make Bitcoin legal tender in the state. Florida, Texas, Wyoming and New York are passing legislation that is friendly and inviting to Bitcoin companies. Miami is even buying Bitcoin on the city's balance sheet.
The world is moving fast, and we should move with it. The countries that move first will reap the biggest rewards. Let's beat them to it and make Bitcoin legal tender here in Canada alongside our proud Canadian dollar.
My last proposition to the committee is that we borrow $10 billion from the Bank of Canada and buy Bitcoin with it. Our country's balance sheet is in shambles, and we need to strengthen it now more than ever. Let's be honest—what's another $10 billion after the years of 2020 and 2021?
Thank you very much.