Thank you so much for the question.
Speaking of the “do no harm” policy, I think coming out of this apocalypse...and I call it that not to be facetious but because that's what it's really felt like for so many of our members and small businesses across the country. They have struggled for so long, white-knuckling it to keep their doors open, and now, finally, fingers-crossed, knock on all various wood products, they're going to be able to stay open. Now it becomes a question of how they keep the lights on, and that goes to the labour shortage, absolutely, but it also goes to the cost of rising food prices, inflation and the general cost of doing business when you have a mountain of debt behind you from those rolling restrictions and lockdowns.
When we ask for the government to do no harm we mean that we require a regulatory framework that doesn't impose additional costs on an industry that continues to white-knuckle it. While we're seeing a light at the end of this pandemic tunnel, we're still very much in the tunnel. Patio season is something that lots of our members are pinning all their hopes and dreams on. We're optimistic that we're going to see sales improve, but as I indicated in my remarks, we are still not yet at prepandemic sales levels.
What we're asking is for the government to help rebuild public confidence, not only when it comes to taking the lead in dining out and helping the hospitality sector to return to those prepandemic levels of operations. We need to create the best possible conditions for recovery for businesses that have spent two years either losing money or barely breaking even.
We need a “do no harm” approach when it comes to taxes, fees and regulations whether it surrounds single-use items or a freeze on any other excise duty taxes or a cap on credit or debit card interchange fees. I don't want to call them low-hanging fruit to diminish the impact they're going to have, but every penny counts right now.