I had my hand up.
I'd like to discuss this, if I could, and respond to my NDP colleague.
It is relevant to our committee, particularly for my riding, which depends on tourism. Tourism is an export industry.
In terms of the supply chain study that we're looking at, if we could examine, for instance, commercial traffic, about 76% of the commercial vehicles that cross our border cross at land border crossings. Four of the main bridges into the United States are located in Ontario, and two of the busiest are in my riding alone.
For example, when we look at supply chain issues, we were talking during the ArriveCAN implementation, and we were looking at bridge delays of over two hours for commercial vehicles. Business was interrupted. My hope is that we can look at this so that we can come forward with recommendations, examine the previous recommendations that we made and ensure that it doesn't happen again.
Tourism is an export industry. In 2019, for example, tourism was a $105-billion sector for the Canadian economy. Because of COVID, it shrank to $80 billion, Madam Chair.
In my community alone, $2.5 billion in tax receipts are generated because of the tourism sector. It employs 40,000 people alone. COVID and this government's reaction to it, through its fatally flawed ArriveCAN, put all of that at risk.
In fact, Madam Chair, if you look at the two years 2021 and 2022, we can say that tourism suffered because of COVID. The government's response in 2022 was horrific. They continued to stick to a fatally flawed ArriveCAN application when it wasn't required, and we lost a third tourism year.
The devastating results of that third tourism year were self-inflicted, and they were self-inflicted because of the actions of this government, which denied businesses—again, we're talking about an export industry—the right to operate, compete and generate the revenues they need to compete and succeed. We're starting to see tourism recovery happen only now, Madam Chair. That's beginning only now.
Again, in communities such as mine, American visitation is at 80%. Domestic visits, because my location is a rubber tire market, are quite strong, but the tourism recovery in this country is uneven.
We saw this past summer, in places like British Columbia and Quebec, that the tourism economy was hampered because of forest fires. It wasn't in communities such as mine, and we were lucky because of that, but it is an important aspect for us to consider and for us to study. I think including this as part of our supply chain study dovetails nicely.
As my colleague Mr. Seeback said, it not only dovetails nicely into our supply chain study, but it also speaks to and references issues with regard to CARM.
In the recent Auditor General's report, which was devastating, on the impact of this ArriveCAN app, the last recommendation was:
Prior to releasing an application or an update, the Canada Border Services Agency should carry out and document its testing, as well as document results obtained and any outstanding issues, on the basis of the defined roles and responsibilities. The agency should also obtain release approval.
Here's the response from the Canada Border Services Agency. We'll be following up when we do this CARM study, but I think it's important. Their response was that they agreed to this recommendation:
The Vice‑President, Information, Science and Technology Branch, recognizes that, given the constantly evolving pandemic environment and the requirement for 177 releases in 36 months, testing documentation was insufficient during ArriveCAN development. It was not feasible to complete all testing documentation as per existing procedures in this emergency environment.
A procedure for streamlined testing documentation will be developed and implemented that will increase agility in emergency situations while at the same time ensuring sufficient controls are in place to document testing results prior to release to production.
In addition, the Information, Science and Technology Branch will review and update existing testing procedures to ensure control steps are introduced and documentation is complete before any system or application is released to production.
These actions will be completed by June 2024.
Madam Chair, one aspect for serious consideration is that this CARM program is going to be implemented in May 2024, so it will be incumbent upon us in the next conversations that we have to ask government officials about their testing procedures. We're hearing significant stakeholder response saying that they're not ready to move forward with CARM.