Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being with us today.
I'd like to begin with Ms. Grynol. Thank you, if I may, Susie, for all the work and advocacy that you've done, not only for the Hotel Association, but for the Tourism Industry Association and the Coalition of Hardest Hit Businesses.
I think you're being a little shy, too, in not recognizing the fact that you're representing over 8,000 facilities and 460,000 employees. In Niagara Falls alone, I have 16,000 hotel rooms and 40,000 people who have come to depend on tourism for their livelihood.
You mentioned some of the distressing signs. It's been three years that we've essentially lost our tourism years. It was two years, because of COVID-19. I put the entire blame last year on a useless ArriveCAN app that did nothing but keep people away from this destination.
Let's talk about the labour situation, because that is something that is impacting my community primarily. We have huge backlogs on the full-time stream, as well as issues with regard to temporary foreign workers.
I want you to explain a bit more about the issues. In Niagara Falls I had hoteliers who were not renting out floors of rooms because they had no people to clean those rooms.
Can you provide more of a description of what we're going through?