The outdoor recreation sector in the U.S. was in the same state as ours—very disconnected. There were a lot of diverse subsectors that were not working together and didn't have a full understanding of the economic impact of the sector. They've come together in the same way that we are, organizing to bring the outdoor recreation sector together.
It's diverse in terms of activity and it's diverse across our nation rurally, in urban centres and across provinces. We're bringing this sector together and really accounting for the economic impact, as has been done in the U.S. with the support of their federal government through their Bureau of Economic Analysis, similar to Stats Canada. Our outdoor recreation sector includes aspects of tourism, but not completely. It's a sector that overlaps, but outdoor recreation, as I've mentioned before, has a greater impact for Canadians and Canadian businesses and for the Canadian workforce and economy.
The more we can account for what our outdoor recreation economy fully encapsulates, what the impacts are and where the impacts are across Canada, the better we can invest, create policies that support it, and direct funding, as our last questioner just mentioned, into ways that can support productivity across our entire workforce.
We can have a better, more detailed understanding of our outdoor recreation economy. What we've done is had a preliminary look, and what we see is really exciting. It's a massive sector. It's really comparable with other sectors that are facing political, economic or environmental challenges, and ours is seeing growth through all of that, and growth within our country. The more we can understand the sector, the more we can direct policy and funding to better support the sector itself, as well as support productivity, the workforce and Canadians and communities across our country.