Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you so much, Ms. Potter, for your excellent testimony here today.
Tourism is such an important part of the economy in my community of Windsor Essex, and I am pleased to hear that tourism is making a huge comeback. We're about 100% back to normal, prepandemic levels. There are six million visitors in Windsor Essex, and this supports about 11,000 jobs across my region, so tourism is incredibly important.
I'm so glad to hear you provide your testimony here today, and I just want to give a huge shout-out to our partners at Tourism Windsor-Essex Pelee Island for the tremendous work they do in promoting tourism to our community.
We're seeing the economy bouncing back as well in a big way. We see, for example, that, in September, 47,000 new jobs were created in Canada, and 33,000 of those jobs are filled by young people ages 15 to 24. We continue to support young people, for example, by permanently removing interest on their student loans to make sure that they're not carrying debt after they graduate from school. We also doubled the student grants and loans that are available for young people, to make sure they don't come out of school with debt when they look for that first work experience.
It's unfortunate that our Conservative colleagues have voted against all measures of relief for young people, which we know are so incredibly vital and important for them.
On the issue of seasonal workers, almost 40% of claimants for EI for seasonal benefits are folks who are 55 and older. I want to ask if you can perhaps provide us some context. What are some of the differences in experiences of seasonal work for young people versus folks who are in that 55 and older range? What should we be paying attention to in terms of how young people experience seasonal work differently?