Thank you.
Excluding fairs and our friends at the CAFE, the festival and events industry in Canada generates an estimated $1.5 billion in annual sales. Its annual economic spin-offs in terms of wealth creation and contribution to the GDP amount to over $2 billion. According to our estimates, at least 30,000 jobs are created or maintained.
In recent weeks, FAME submitted a brief to the Standing Committee on Finance that urges the government to focus on festivals and events to boost the economy and tourism. We made five recommendations in the brief. First, we believe that the Canadian government must take financial action through a fund designed to address the deficits of cultural organizations, including festivals and events. In our sector alone, we're talking about at least $150 million. These organizations are very often non-profit organizations that don't have any reserves or capitalization and that were unable to generate any revenue this year. A significant percentage of our members say that they're unable to resume operations or that they're uncertain whether they'll be able to do so without this assistance.
At this point, of the $500 million announced for culture and sports, only $15 million has been set aside for presenters in general, which includes festivals and events, in the form of an increase to the usual grant. This isn't enough.
We also emphasized the importance of extending the emergency wage subsidy and the Canada emergency response benefit or equivalent benefits tailored specifically to the culture and tourism sectors. We urged the federal government to implement a program based on the marquee tourism events program and to allocate $225 million over three years. I can expand on this idea during our discussions. It would help attract more tourism, not only from Canada under the current circumstances, but also from other countries, as soon as that becomes possible again.
I'll finish by saying that we also asked the government to renew the additional $15 million per year allocated in 2019 to the two programs, which support over 1,300 festivals and events. This addition was planned for only two years. Lastly, we suggested that the government expand the security infrastructure program so that festivals and events can access it.
Thank you. I look forward to speaking with you in a few minutes.