Thank you, Madam Chair.
First, I want to thank our guests for joining us today.
I want to emphasize the importance of the tourism industry in Quebec. This industry employs over 400,000 workers and generates close to 9% of jobs in the Quebec economy. We're talking about over 30,000 businesses. It should be noted that two-thirds of these 30,000 businesses are located outside the major centres, meaning outside the Quebec City and Montreal areas. Most of these businesses are small. Over 80% of these businesses have fewer than 20 employees.
Mr. Hamel, you spoke earlier about the importance of cash flow and possible moratoriums to help these businesses. We fully understand that small businesses have a more difficult time obtaining a large amount of cash flow. We completely agree with you regarding financial support for these businesses. You spoke of the changes to the regional relief and recovery fund, or the RRRF. Recently, changes were made to another program, the Canada emergency wage subsidy. As we know, this program has been very structuring for the tourism industry since the start of the pandemic. However, the new criteria for this program have put many tourism businesses in Quebec out of commission. The new criteria aren't necessarily adapted to tourism businesses.
Mr. Hamel, can you describe the negative impact of the new program criteria?