Finance Committee on Oct. 5th, 2022

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much for that.

I appreciate your commitment to sustainability and the environment. As you said, though, the issue is right now in terms of.... Of course, we will transition as an economy to a greener economy; there's no doubt about that. However, coming right out of COVID and then jumping on in April and tripling the carbon tax to increase it seems to me to be not fair to your industry and not fair to Canadians.

Further, we've seen food inflation, because of this government's reckless spending, at over 10%. In addition to being transported here, people come here to Canada for the fabulous food that is here. As we try to attract people, will that increase in the cost of food increase, and will it be a detriment to your members?

[Beth Potter]

Thank you for that question.

Of course, offering a unique taste of a place is something a lot of our members are very proud of.

As an industry, we are grappling with rising costs across the board, whether they are the rising food costs, rising costs of insurance or other costs related to the supply chain. These are all challenges we are grappling with.

The only way these increased costs can be absorbed is by passing on the costs to the consumer.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

You have many hard-working wage earners in your industry, as well. They're working extremely hard to feed their families. Many of them have been through a very difficult time, whether they're coming off layoffs or, if they're commission-based, they've seen their commissions dramatically decrease. It's extremely challenging.

Do you think it's fair to them to increase their payroll taxes starting January 1, which means they will keep less of their paycheques just as they're coming out of an extremely difficult time? Is it fair that the government will price-gouge individuals to work or do you think it would be more beneficial to let them keep more of their dollars? They've worked so hard and have been through such a difficult time.

[Beth Potter]

Anything that keeps more money in the pockets of our employees is something we would support.

It's unfortunate. Our industry is one that took a real beating during the pandemic. We lost 15 years of employment growth. We are competing with many other industries that did not really have the same kind of reputational damage that the restrictions around the pandemic levied onto our industry. We're very challenged in that way.

As we strive to recruit a great workforce, attract and retain that workforce, we of course want to be able to make whatever we're offering them the most robust offer possible.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I see that the chair is unmuting, so my time is up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Ms. Potter.

MP Lawrence, your time is up.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I just want to say thank you, Chair, to Ms. Potter for the great work that she has done for her industry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

She has done great work.

Thank you, MP Lawrence.

We are going to now move to the Liberals, and MP MacDonald for five minutes.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

I may as well stick with Ms. Potter as well.

One of the largest platforms for booking agencies around the world is booking.com. It did a survey not long ago on sustainability and people travelling to destinations relative to trying to be more green.

How important is it to our country to ensure that we do everything possible to put us on a level playing field with those countries in Europe that are ahead of us in sustainability?

[Beth Potter]

Through the chair, as I said earlier, we are looking for every way that we can build forward. We're trying not to use language of building back, but of building forward and doing things in a different way. Doing things that are better for the environment, will reduce our carbon footprint, will be more sustainable and will produce socio-economic benefits for our people and for our communities are top of mind for our industry.

It is important for us to be globally competitive with other countries around the world. We are fighting for the same business as they are. Unlike other situations, like SARS in the early 2000s when Canada was affected and other countries were not so much, we are now competing with the world for the same travellers to come back. It's going to be very important for us to be....

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I want to go back to my colleague.

Tourism in Prince Edward Island, obviously, is extremely important. We've been hit really hard recently with Fiona. I could go into that, but I won't.

I want to list some of the supports that I lobbied for, as an individual and an MP, for the industry. I want to know if these supports were beneficial.

We had the Canada emergency wage subsidy. We had the Canada emergency business account. We had the Canada emergency rent subsidy. We had a large employer emergency financing facility subsidy of up to $60 million. We had a business credit availability program, the Canada recovery hiring program, the highly affected sectors credit availability program and a regional relief and recovery fund. Those are just some. It totalled about $15.4 billion that we put into the tourism industry from the time COVID hit. Then there are more programs coming out of the recovery.

Are there any programs that the government should have done? Is there another program that it never touched during the past two and a half years?

[Beth Potter]

First I'll just say we are very thankful for the support and the government programs that helped to support our industry through, basically, a complete shutdown. We were hoping to see extensions of the existing supports for a little bit longer. As we saw, our season, our tourism year this year, did not come back as strongly as we had hoped, because of a number of reasons, one being the number of measures still in place at the border.

Is there something specific that I could put my finger on? We have lots of ideas. We had lots of conversations with finance about different programs that could have benefited the industry. I do want to say that what was done for the industry we are very grateful for.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I know labour is a major issue.

[Beth Potter]

Yes.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I know immigration brought forward a temporary foreign worker program. It was going to start this year. I doubt it had any effect on tourism around the country, but next year is there a specific target market, I guess—if I could use the word “market” loosely—of temporary foreign workers the industry will try to obtain?

[Beth Potter]

It all depends on which sector within the industry you're talking to. If you are talking to some of the accommodators, they have existing relationships and agreements with some of the Caribbean countries, and bring up workers through that program. The ski industry out west very much looks to some of the South Asian countries. It's segmented by the suite of sectors that we represent. With the focus on tourism for the temporary foreign worker program, we are really hoping to see a bigger uptake in the number of employers being able to access that program than they had in the last year.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I just want to add quickly that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP MacDonald.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I was going to tell them how well P.E.I. is doing in tourism this year.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes, I know the time goes very quickly.

We're moving to the Bloc and MP Ste-Marie for two and a half minutes, please.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to be unoriginal in that I'm also going to ask my questions to Ms. Potter during this round of questioning.

Ms. Potter, since I only have two and a half minutes, I'm going to ask my two questions at the same time, even though the topics are different.

First of all, I would like you to give us an idea of the state of the international conventions sector. We know that large cities like Montreal are struggling right now, and so are their hotels, among others. Montreal was the main destination in the Americas for international conventions. In the tourism industry, have these conventions resumed? What is the situation and what specific measures could the government deploy to better support this industry in Canada?

My second question is about the seasonal and cyclical nature of many jobs in the tourism industry. This is perhaps more the case in the regions. The government had special employment insurance measures in place during the pandemic. It has now removed them, causing a return to the old EI system, and almost doubling the number of hours needed to qualify for benefits. Are tourism businesses in the regions complaining about the situation and the fact that they can no longer retain workers with seasonal jobs?

[Beth Potter]

Thank you very much.

Can I answer in English?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Yes.

[Beth Potter]

To your first question on business events, we think that within our sector it's going to be the last part of the tourism industry to recover. We are seeing that international rivals for the Canadian destinations are going to continue to be a big challenge.

Now that the border measures have been removed, we're hoping to see an uptake in that. There are two recommendations we have where government could support that particular sector. One is a national fund that would help us to go and bid on those events and bring them to Canada. The other is investment in infrastructure. Canada does not have enough big space for hosting big events. If we want to be a major player and in fact continue to attract those big, important business events, we actually need additional convention space. Those are the two on that.

What was your other question?

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

My second question was about employment insurance and the fact that we are going back to the old system.