Finance Committee on Dec. 9th, 2021

[Susie Grynol]

Yes.

Canada is not really open for business today. It is very difficult to get into Canada. The PCR test is a barrier and, of course, now we hear talk of more restrictions coming into place.

I want to be clear though. We are all sensitive to the fact that this is a health crisis and that we do have a variant out there. We are all trying to understand what this variant means, how transmissible it is and what it will mean in terms of its relationship to vaccine effectiveness.

What we ask of government moving forward is that, as we understand these health implications, we are clear with Canadians and international travellers and that we have a clear and predictable situation at the border so that those people who do need to travel, whether it's for leisure or business, have a clear understanding of what is going to happen at the border.

Eventually, once we learn to live with this virus, we will need a process that is not as clunky as it is today. We desperately need a wide-open travel climate in this country if our industry is going to come back by this summer. Otherwise, the collapse that I speak of will be inevitable.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you. That's very helpful.

Mr. Saretsky, I appreciate your expertise on the real estate sector. We've spent a lot of time talking about affordable housing in the last few days and we had some time with the Minister of Finance earlier this morning. We've tried a lot of things to deal with the affordability crisis. I think you're on the west coast, with the vacant homes tax, a speculation tax and a ban on foreign buyers, but some of the underlying fundamentals of the lending market have remained consistent, and one of those is low interest rates.

In your opinion, what is it going to take to affect the housing market most specifically and what are the risks that are growing in that market under the current structure?

[Stephen Saretsky]

It's a good question.

I think that so long as interest rates are where they're at and mortgage rates are where they're at, you're going to continue to have a larger and larger inflow of capital into that housing market. It's just what it is. I'm in Vancouver. There's an empty homes tax. We've tried a speculation tax. We've tried an Airbnb ban. We've tried everything.

If you're not going to raise interest rates, then I would say the biggest thing we can try to tackle is ultimately getting more housing supply. The big challenge really is at the municipal level with the amount of red tape. The length of time it takes to get a project approved and to get homes built is simply way too long.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you.

How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

You have 50 seconds, almost a minute.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you.

I have a quick one for Ms. Kobluk.

Were you consulted or was your organization consulted during the development of Bill C-2 or have you had any recent conversations with the government about the challenges that some of your members are facing?

[Devorah Kobluk]

We have not directly with the government, no.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you.

[Devorah Kobluk]

We were not consulted. We wish we had been.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Are you done, Mr. Chambers?

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

We are moving now to the Liberals.

We have Mr. MacDonald for five minutes.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to talk to Mrs. Grynol again. How many employees are represented by the Hotel Association of Canada?

[Susie Grynol]

There are 300,000.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Approximately how many of those, that you know of, would have been let go during COVID-19?

[Susie Grynol]

Sixty per cent of our workforce was lost in those early months, when we had a total shutdown. We have been trying to hire back as many of those people as possible, but it is unclear in this environment today how many have been lost permanently. We know that many have transferred over to the health sector and will not be coming back.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Do you track the number of rehires? Most of those people would have gone on CERB. Employment rose by 154,000 people in November.

Do you have any numbers on how many of those people went back into the service sector that you represent?

[Susie Grynol]

I do have those numbers. What I'd like to do is follow up with, committee, if I can, on the very specifics of which percentage was hired back into our sector. What I can tell you is that we did not see the kind of recovery we needed to see. We did not get to hire back as many workers as we needed to. Part of that was because of CERB, but that was not the whole reason.

Fundamentally, we have become a destabilized industry and many of our workers have moved on. On top of that, we have an industry that, in many regions of the country, did not see the kind of demand we needed to see to hire back as many workers as possible. The numbers you're referring to mostly apply to other sectors, but I will get you the specifics of our sector, in particular.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Did the Hotel Association of Canada do any surveys or research on regionality and how COVID-19.... Are there areas that were hit harder than other areas?

I come from a rural area and I'm wondering if there's any information that you can provide us on where the hardest-hit areas of the Hotel Association of Canada and the tourism industry were?

[Susie Grynol]

The downtown cores were disproportionately hard hit. Across the board, revenues were down between 50% and 100% over the course of COVID, up until the last couple of months. It is across the board, but there is an acute challenge in the urban cores where, this summer, we did not have events, fairs, festivals or any of what drives people to the downtown cores. People aren't working in those downtown cores. They have been devastated and I would be very happy to follow up with you.

We have every single market for every single week, and we can do an analysis of rural versus urban for every market.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

We can't depend on domestic travel for much longer. We need international travel. The new variant has put an impediment in the way of that.

If your sector doesn't get Bill C-2 passed, what alternative is out there? I know there are hotels right downtown in Ottawa that are huge, nice hotels that don't have their restaurants open. I'm sure some people in this room are likely staying at at least one of them.

What is the doom and gloom if this doesn't get passed?

[Susie Grynol]

We'll see a collapse in this sector. Using the hotel sector as an example, according to that survey, we could see up to 60% of the hotels in this country close permanently. They will not be able to cover the bills. They are running a loss every single month in most regions and in most segments in this country.

This bill will provide support for them to pay a portion of their fixed costs and a portion of their wages, which is the lifeline the industry needs to get through the next couple of months. Without it, we will see significant business closures, possibly up to 60%.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you. That's your time, Mr. MacDonald.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Now we'll move over to the Bloc and Madame Sinclair-Desgagné.