Evidence of meeting #29 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was businesses.
A recording is available from Parliament.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
We think we lost him, so we will come back to him.
I will start the third round. I know we are running a little late, but we are going to try to complete a third round.
With that, we will go to Mr. Patzer.
You have the floor for five minutes.
1:55 p.m.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Before I am put on the clock here, how many more slots are there going to be in total? I think we have another colleague who was expecting to have a round as well.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Exactly. For this round, we're going to try to complete the whole round, so we will have two slots for the Conservatives, two slots for the Liberals, one slot for the Bloc and two for Mr. Masse, because he just missed a round.
1:55 p.m.
Conservative
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Actually, I see him, so we will go to Mr. Masse, with my apologies.
I will start the clock, Mr. Masse. You will have two and a half minutes, and then we will go to MP Patzer.
1:55 p.m.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Madam Chair, we can go to Mr. Richards instead of me first, and then I will take the last Conservative round.
1:55 p.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm sorry I didn't get on in time.
I asked that question before and gave you details, because that is a program that could be active right now, but it still doesn't really get to the depth of the problem with regard to where the industry is at.
Ms. Grynol, I would like to ask you a question. With regard to the hoteliers, especially the smaller owners, if they don't get this type of support now, are there just going to be basically a lot of bankruptcies and units being put out on the market? If that's the case, should we be looking at something even bolder to deal with that, because one way or another they are going to default?
Give us a snapshot as to how significant that is.
1:55 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Hotel Association of Canada
You're absolutely right. It's going to be the smallest members who go under first, and, based on our members' survey, it will go up from there. There's a direct correlation between cash flow, in terms of when it runs out, and the size of businesses. If there is nothing done, we anticipate that at least 25%, and likely more than that, of our sector will go under. Depending on how long this is sustained, it could be even more than that.
We do believe it needs to be bold. We put a five-point plan in front of the government, which I think you have in front of you.
1:55 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Hotel Association of Canada
We'd like to see support in each of those areas. Liquidity needs to be fixed. We have a matter of weeks ahead of us. Then we do want to see forgiveness within those loan programs, but we need the infrastructure in place first.
Thank you for the opportunity to, once again, underscore how critical this is.
1:55 p.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I guess this is going to be the big challenge for the government. If we don't deal with this right now, then we'll have a bunch of failed assets around the country. We've all been on the smaller roads and seen old hotels boarded up and left in a state of disrepair, which is not good for renewed tourism, and it is not good on a municipal tax basis.
This has a bigger snowball effect that will even be compounded, so I can see the sense in the federal government backstopping the loans. If not, then we would have to come up with some type of alternative, maybe a housing-type strategy, using the units for a different social purpose, or we are going to actually have them become decrepit and run into the ground.
Sorry, but I'm out of time.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Thank you very much.
We will start the third round. We are trying again to have MP Richards. We are hopeful.
You have the floor for five minutes.
1:55 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB
Let's hope the third time's the charm, Madam Chair.
I will start by reiterating what I said earlier, that it is really unfortunate that there is going to be only one meeting, it seems, on this incredibly important industry for our country, and that we've jammed so many witnesses in it that it's hard to get questions to all of them. I do hope that any others in the tourism industry out there who are listening and who would like to have this opportunity will take the suggestion made by my colleague Tracy Gray and write to the chair and the clerk to request that opportunity, because it is incredibly important.
Having said that, I have a couple of questions I'd like to get a chance to ask, and I want to get a chance to ask a few of you each of the questions. I'll start with the first question, which will be for CAFE or FAME, whichever of you would like to take it. The question is also for Meetings Mean Business and then TIAC as well. Hopefully there will be time for a second question to the Hotel Association and the Association Restauration Québec.
I'll start with the first question. A few of you alluded to or mentioned in your opening comments the idea that the tourism industry is very different from almost any other industry that we're dealing with coming out of this pandemic, because of the fact that it was hit first and hit hardest and because it will have the longest recovery. Many of you mentioned the idea of next spring being that time, because of the fact that it's a seasonal industry in many places, and for things like events and festivals it means two years, essentially, without revenues. It is a very long period of time for a business to be able to sustain itself, especially when many of these businesses are small businesses or, in some cases, non-profits.
It would have been better for me to ask this during the initial round, but because they alluded to it, I'd like to ask those three organizations if they could give us just 30 seconds each to explain just a bit more to those who aren't as familiar with the industry as I am or others who are on here why exactly the tourism industry is different and what the impacts are of the government treating the tourism industry in the same way it is treating other small businesses that maybe have an opportunity to either continue to carry on business in a different fashion or turn things back on more quickly.
I'll ask CAFE or FAME first, and then Meetings Mean Business and then TIAC to just give us 30 seconds each to explain that to those who are less familiar with the industry.
2 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of Fairs and Exhibitions
I've started for this entire time, so I'll hand it over to Monsieur Roy to start, and then if there's a second or two, I'll pop in.
2 p.m.
Executive Director, Festivals and Major Events Canada
Thanks, Christina.
The thing that is so specific to festivals and events is the fact that we get revenues for a period of three to 10 days per year most of the time. Now that the events are cancelled, we don't get any revenues, and the next time we will get revenues will be when we put tickets on sale next year or during the events themselves. That's the main challenge we face, and we are looking forward to getting specific help in our sector.
2 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Association of Fairs and Exhibitions
Just as a quick addition there, I think it's about the economic impact on the communities and the towns. When Formula 1 comes to town, it's helping everyone; it's helping the entire tourism industry. That goes right down to my local fair, Expo Ormstown. It goes from 3,000 people to 20,000. That helps the restaurants, the hotels, the print shop, everyone.
2 p.m.
Conservative
2 p.m.
Chair, Meetings Mean Business Canada
I would just suggest that with conventions and conferences, it's usually a three- to five-year window to attract some of these events to Canada. With being shut down, we're losing some probably for the next 10 years, because they cycle to other parts of the world. So if we lose them, it's not simply that they'll be pushed to next year; it's that they won't be back for 10 years, in some cases.
We've had a really good couple of years in this space in terms of attracting great events to Canada, but many of the ones that were going to run this year and next year are being fully cancelled for this year and questions are being asked about whether they will happen next year. The international events are very challenging, and obviously we need a window of time, as we talked about earlier, to see when we might be able to reopen for those events because they're so critical to our economy.
Of course, there are local events, regional events and Canadian events. For those, having Canadians move around to go to conferences, we believe, can be done safely, and we believe that could be done very effectively.
2 p.m.
Conservative
2 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Thank you, Mr. Richards.
In terms of what's different about tourism, first, tourism is found in every single region in Canada. I don't know of many industries that people could actually say are present from coast to coast to coast. We are in every single riding. We also have many small businesses and many seasonal businesses. Even for a year-round business that's open 12 months of the year, we depend on a very small window or it's maybe disproportionate in terms of how we garner our revenues, because of course for the high season, which is the summer—or for winter tourism operators it would be the winter months—we have a very small window in which we can garner revenues to stay afloat.
2:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
Thank you.
Unfortunately, you're over time again, Ms. Bell. I wanted to make sure Mr. Richards had a good chunk of time, as he kept having trouble with technical difficulties.
2:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Got it.
2:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sherry Romanado
With that, we will move to MP Jowhari.
You have the floor for five minutes.
2:05 p.m.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses. I'd like to commend you on your recommendations. The recommendations were quite specific and sector-based. You also presented a point of view as to why some of the programs still have opportunity for improvement vis-à-vis the sector you're in. As I was listening to all the witnesses, I realized that there's another stakeholder group in this equation that we need to consider, which is the consumers.
Many of you have indicated some of the surveys that have been done by your organizations. I'd like to get some insight as to whether any of these surveys may have probed into consumer sensitivity, whether in terms of visitors from abroad, visitors from the U.S., visitors from other provinces or local visitors. What have you observed about the attitude and the motivation of these consumers? That will be able to give us a balanced view of the industry as well as the consumers.
I'd like to start with the Tourism Industry Association and Ms. Bell. Have any of your studies indicated anything regarding consumers' behaviour or consumers' sentiment?