Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me here today. It's great to see some familiar faces.
For almost 100 years, CAFE has focused on helping our 743 organizations reach their full potential. We do this primarily by organizing a variety of professional development opportunities and advocating for our industry's interests.
Our not-for-profit organizations offer their grounds as shelter when there are floods, or as vaccine or testing sites right now. We work with community organizations like the Lions Club or fire departments to host their fundraisers. We host a whole slew of other programming, such as summer camps, socials, dances, rodeos, concerts, representing more than 17,000 events per year across Canada. These are organized by an estimated 130,000-plus volunteers who see 35 million visitors annually. These events have an estimated annual impact of $2.9 billion on the Canadian economy. We're more than just a fair. We are community events and cultural hubs that are often older than Canada itself.
When we look at how we can green our infrastructure and programming, I want to highlight that our industry has its own little ecosystem. The fair organizations are supported by thousands of small businesses, concessionaires, food trucks, artisans and the list goes on. When we put an eye on sustainable practices, we also need to pay attention to all of these assets.
One of the main challenges coming out of recovery will be the need to rebuild stakeholder confidence in mass gatherings—when the time is right. One way to do that is by integrating green initiatives into our organization. This will have a domino effect, supporting our growth by giving us increased capacity to host expanded programming and draw in new audiences.
Our first recommendation is to provide sustainable retrofitting and capital grants that target aging infrastructure. Our industry has almost 2,000 facilities across Canada that would cost an estimated $3.1 billion to replace, so repair and maintenance is crucial. This, however, presents unique challenges that end up being more costly. When designing a sustainable upgrade, we see additional costs to bring buildings up to code, to make them all-season with insulation and other measures, and to sometimes tear down in order to rebuild components. As such, in order for us to be able to take advantage of them, any sustainable retrofitting grants need to take into account the whole process. Without launching massive fundraising campaign, operating those non-profits means we don't have significant surpluses to put towards any major initiative, including capital projects.
Our second recommendation is to support green innovation projects at events, particularly in rural areas. We have a chance to showcase new sustainable technologies and practices, and to educate Canadians, similar to what we are proud to do with agriculture.
We are already starting to lead by example by diverting waste at events. The Canadian National Exhibition alone diverted 86% of the waste from landfills in 2019. The Armstrong IPE launched a composting initiative for their event in 2015, and it has seen exponential growth, from diverting 1,250 pounds in its first year to more than 20,000 pounds in 2019. They also diverted 45,000 plastic bottles by providing water refill stations at their events.
These programs take special signage and equipment, volunteers and staff. To expand these and other innovative projects across Canada at all of our events, support from the federal government is critical. In addition, we need to think about the green initiatives of our service providers. Whether it be powering their equipment through alternative energy sources on the road and at their events or diverting their own waste, they need equal support.
Our third recommendation is to provide tax credits to implement green initiatives. As an example, a major Canadian entertainment company is already committing to a minimum of 50% recycled materials for all their assets in 2021—wardrobe, props, etc.—as well as 25% recycled material for their merchandise. These are all incremental changes that our service providers and our industry are taking or can take to support sustainability, and they could be easily rewarded with tax credits.
Finally, we recommend providing industry-specific training on greening your business or organization. Our organizations are resource-strapped. We have dedicated volunteers who have done well in the past when they were given specified training, tools and templates to lead new initiatives in their own organization. For example, CAFE offered a series of educational courses to our industry on best practices to mitigate the spread of enteric pathogens. Similarly, we are currently developing a program to educate our community on best practices in animal care at public events. In both cases, participants walk away with a workbook and a foundation to develop their own plans and programs using metrics and targets and with the support of the national body and the federal government.
Federal support for training and education will help our organizations understand the importance of sustainability, activate innovation and develop best practices with a clear road map. Ultimately, we need to see language in these proposed programs that is inclusive of our community organizations and their events, specifically referencing agricultural fairs, exhibitions and event organizations.
We are so pleased to see the standing committee looking to recovery as an opportunity to build a better Canada. We look forward to being a part of the process.
Thank you.