Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to thank all our witnesses for being here today.
I'm going to begin my round of questioning with Ms. Potter.
It's good to see you again, so soon after our last meeting at committee. I want to thank you for your continued advocacy for our Canadian tourism industry.
As you know, my riding is the number one leisure tourism destination in all of Canada, with 40,000 workers and 16,000 hotel rooms. Prior to COVID, we generated $2.4 billion in tourism receipts. We probably get 20 million visitors annually. Fifty per cent of the revenues that will be generated in my riding come from American visitation. That was greatly impacted because of COVID.
Like our national industry, COVID had a devastating impact. We were hit first. We were hit the hardest and, as the industry always says, it's going to take our sector the longest to recover.
As you mentioned, and maybe my colleagues aren't fully aware, prior to COVID.... Tourism matters. It's a $105-billion industry in Canada. It's one in every 11 jobs. It's 2% of our GDP. Two years ago, when COVID devastated things, borders shut down and the sector was closed, the government provided $1 billion in support in its budget—$1 billion for a $105-billion industry. My region alone generates $2.4 billion in receipts.
Several important programs were created to assist workers, but then in last year's budget, there was nothing. There was some programming and funding for indigenous tourism, which was highly important and highly needed. You had advocated for a continuation of benefit programs until at least the fall, but the government essentially said to the industry that come the spring, May, they would be over. That's fair enough. That's a government decision, but if they're going to stand by that decision, what they have to do is remove those obstacles that stand in the way of the success of our tourism sector. One of those was the continued border measures and programs, such as ArriveCAN, that continued to be in place. It was a huge obstacle. For American visitation, again, as of August, land border crossings are still at 50%. In my community that's 50% of the revenues. It had a devastating impact, and yet the government continued its obstinance and refused to make changes.
Just the other day Dr. Zain Chagla said those border measures could have been removed as early as the springtime. The data was out there. The proof was out there. Many countries, at least 60 countries around the world, had removed their border restrictions, and yet Canada continued to have them in place. In fact, last year's budget even committed $25 million towards the ArriveCAN app when that could have been put towards destination marketing, for example, once the borders were open.
It's always too little, too late when the government decides to finally end those border restrictions, and we have a long way to go. For example, how long do you expect the Canadian tourism recovery to take to get back to 2019 numbers?