Industry Committee on Aug. 10th, 2020

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Yes. There's also no interpretation. I'm sorry, but I'm very curious to know what Mr. Richards will say, especially under the circumstances. I wish that I could grasp all the subtleties.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Richards, I'm not sure if you can get a little closer. Your microphone is scratchy again.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Chair, on that point of order as well, I think it's important to highlight to the witnesses that MPs have been issued these headsets to help the translators. It's very painful for them to do their job without our using these types of headsets. Our caucuses have been advised of that, and MPs should be using these.

Witnesses, just so you know, when you're speaking into your microphone, it's very painful for the translators if they can't pick up the voices properly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much, Mr. Masse.

I understand that we're going to go to MP Gray while we try to fix Mr. Richard's microphone, and we'll switch their rounds of questions.

Mr. Richards, whatever it is you did the last time, if you could, try it again because it seems to have fixed it last time. We will absolutely come back to you.

With that, I will turn it over to MP Gray.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess we'll start the clock.

First, I just want to reiterate what MP Richards said regarding having one meeting. It's a real shame that we have seven witnesses today crammed into less than two hours, for such an important industry. I just want to comment before I ask some questions.

We are hearing from an industry that annually adds more than a billion dollars to our economy, that adds 2% to our GDP, that employs almost two million people and that was the first hit, as we know. We've heard already that there are ongoing challenges and likely the industry will be one of the last to recover, so it's really important that the government put plans together. We haven't seen any kind of plan from the government specifically for tourism.

We know that the minister has basically asked people in tourism to apply to Western Economic Diversification, which we've heard in the feedback is very onerous. It is not the same process as applying for the CEBA $40,000 loan. We know that people in tourism and a lot of organizations we've already heard this morning are not eligible for a lot of the programs. Diverting a bit of funding away from international to domestic tourism is not a plan.

For us today, we don't have a plan for air travel, for seasonal tourism, for skiing, for agri-tourism, for sports tournaments, for events, or for arts, music, historical or cultural tourism. There really is nothing. I'm hearing from many people in tourism organizations that, frankly, they're feeling snubbed. It's really important, if we're not going to have another meeting, that others out there in tourism, if they're interested in having their voices heard, write to this committee at [email protected]. When we put the report together for government, it will be very important to have a comprehensive report and that all voices have been heard.

Now I'll go to some questions.

I have a couple of questions for Mr. Vézina of the Quebec restaurants association. I noticed a survey on your organization's website stating that 61% of restaurants will not be able to maintain their activities beyond six months with their present conditions. I'm wondering if you can let us know today whether the federal government has reached out to your organization about any plans for anything specific for your industry to support the culinary tourism sector.

[Martin Vézina]

To answer your question, we had some talks with the ministry of small enterprises to discuss what could be brought up to help restaurant owners and restaurants, but there's no such thing for culinary tourism. We're more likely to talk about how to help restaurant owners maintain their operations. We're not now saying that we should promote culinary tourism.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Okay. That's great. Thank you.

In the Okanagan—and I'm sure it is the same in Quebec as well—our restaurants play a really important role for our local economy, including supporting local farmers and those making value-added products like cheese, condiments, and alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.

Mr. Vézina, could you expand on how specifically those types of related industries would be affected by our restaurant sector continuing to suffer in the long term?

[Martin Vézina]

You are absolutely right that restaurants have an effect on all of the agri-food chain. We saw that when we were closed down in Quebec during March, April and May, many producers and food processing plants were closed down. They had difficulty because 20% to 25% of their sales could not be done since the restaurant industry was closed down.

It has an impact on everything in the agri-food chain. There are jobs that will be in play if we don't open to full capacity in the restaurant industry. There will be an effect on producers but also on the processing plants and manufacturers.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you.

I have a question for both Ms. Franc from the Canadian Association of Fairs and Exhibitions, and Mr. Roy from Festivals and Major Events Canada.

Last week, Canada's chief public health officer, Dr. Tam, stated that, even with a vaccine, we may require two to three years of physical distancing due to uncertainty. Has the federal government reached out to you to consult on any plans or protocols to ensure that fairs, exhibitions and festival sectors can survive if this is the case?

Ms. Franc, maybe you could go first.

[Christina Franc]

Sure. First of all, we fully support the science and what has come out. It's going to be a long road to recovery. We haven't heard anything yet from the government about next steps and plans related to this on our part.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Okay.

Mr. Roy?

[Martin Roy]

Most of the event organizers deal with the provincial and municipal governments as far as the regulations are concerned.

Also, we are aware that gatherings will not be allowed for a while, but new formulas can be explored now. We know that events are being planned well in advance and we need to have discussions now about events in 2021, 2022 and even 2023.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much, Mr. Roy.

That is a little bit over your time, MP Gray.

We will now move to MP Ehsassi.

You have the floor for six minutes.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for their remarks today.

I have to say that a lot of the statistics we have heard are incredibly alarming and that there's no doubt that, as a country, we should be doing a much better job of being there for the tourism industry.

Now if I may, I would like to start off with Ms. Grynol.

Given that you have a national perspective and represent an association with operations throughout the country, I was wondering if you could highlight for us whether there are any particular regions that are more severely affected than others as far as the hotel industry goes.

[Susie Grynol]

The good news is that we have started to see some uptake in our resort hotels this summer, but those hotels are operating at half-capacity. For example, I'm at the Château Montebello today and it is running at 48% occupancy, so that is its maximum.

All of our urban hotels are really struggling. They are all operating at a loss right now. Occupancy for Canada today is at 38%. Just to give you a sense of this, you can't run a business at 38% occupancy since you would be running it at a loss. Even at the height of the tourist season, where we should be right now, nationally the entire industry is running at a loss.

With the exception of the resort properties, everything is really struggling. People just aren't travelling.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Do you also have a regional breakdown of how hard hit the tourism industry is across the country?

[Susie Grynol]

It actually is fairly consistent across the country. It's just bad everywhere. Unless you're in a resort community, it's bad. Everyone is running a loss.

I can certainly provide the committee with a more detailed breakdown, if you'd like to see those numbers. I'd be very happy to provide them to you as a follow-up.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you very much. That would be very helpful.

As a last question, have any provincial programs been helpful to the tourism industry across the country?

[Susie Grynol]

The two key issues that we're dealing with in terms of survival for the hotel sector right now are access to liquidity and our employment issues, so I guess the short answer is not really. There's been one loan program in Quebec, but it's nowhere near the kind of liquidity we would need for an asset-heavy industry. There have been marketing programs. They've been helpful to the extent that they're there, but people still aren't really getting out and travelling.

We are not seeing a lot of support at the provincial level, other than some provinces allowing working notice to be a longer period of time with regard to employees so that the clock doesn't start ticking. Some provinces have pushed that further to give us some flexibility with our employees.

Other than that, we've not seen a lot of broad-based support, and certainly not for the hotel sector directly.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you for that.

Ms. Bell, you also have a national association. I'm wondering whether you could disaggregate things for us. Have any subsectors of the tourism industry been hit harder than others?

[Charlotte Bell]

It would be hard for me to say to you that they haven't all been hit very hard. If you look at air services, they're down at single digits. Porter Airlines is not going to reopen until October; they've moved that date. Airports are struggling significantly.

Susie has covered the hotels very well. We did a bit of a phone survey across the regions last week. I won't go through all the statistics, but it's pretty dire across the board. I would agree with what Susie said, that except for the resort areas, where they're seeing a little bit of an uptick during the couple of months over the summer, everything else is in dire straits, quite frankly. As Clark Grue from Meetings Being Business Canada could tell you, the meetings and conventions sector is almost non-existent right now because of the prohibitions against mass gatherings and the safety measures in place.

It is really, across the board, a very, very dire situation. There's no question about it.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you for that.

Turning to the witness on business event professionals, given all the activity and the 229,000 jobs on the line, perhaps you could provide a breakdown of where most of the visitors were coming from in the visitors economy that you were very much engaged in. Do you have a breakdown in terms of North American visitors or visitors from all around the world or just domestic events that you were having?

[Clark Grue]

Thank you for the question. I'll try to be quick.

Certainly Charlotte would have some numbers on tourism as a whole. I think 78% are Canadians and others are coming from elsewhere in the world. For business events, conventions and congresses, you have a higher percentage coming from outside Canada. That has definitely hit us hard as well.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Grynol, you mentioned that you would forward information to us. If you could make sure to send it to the clerk of the committee, that would be great.

Any information that any witness wants to provide for us—for instance, the phone survey you mentioned, Ms. Bell—please feel free to send that to the clerk. He will make sure it's distributed to members of the committee.

With that, I will turn to Mr. Lemire.