I don't want to switch back and forth. I'm really sorry about that, but I sort of prepared myself in English, so here I go. I will be fairly brief.
Canada's horse-racing industry generates approximately 50,000 full-time jobs across Canada. We have established that today. It contributes about $5.6 billion annually to the national economy. From breeders to trainers to veterinarians and blacksmiths, the racing industry's impact is significant when it comes to jobs and economically speaking, but it is all possible because of parimutuel wagering. This is even more the case in Quebec as it is our only source of revenue.
Club Jockey du Québec was created as a not-for-profit organization in 2009 with a mission to sustain and grow the horse industry. Since its creation, the wagering from Quebec players on horse races around the world is stable at about $70 million a year, just in Quebec. From that, Club Jockey du Québec returns approximately 73% to the players with winning tickets using the parimutuel model. The rest is kept to pay taxes, federal and provincial, racetrack host fees and partners such as legal web platforms used by clients or betting parlours across Quebec. At the end of it all, we are able to present races at our local racetrack in Trois-Rivières and redistribute $3 million of net profit to the industry.
I have a whole two pages to tell you about what parimutuel versus fixed-odds wagering is; however, I believe by now you understand the issue.
Basically I want to talk to you from my heart today, because the race industry in Quebec has suffered plenty in the past couple of years. In 2008 they called for the end of racetracks in Quebec, and as I just mentioned, in 2009 a few horsemen got together and realized they could not let that happen, so they created the Club Jockey du Québec. We now have races, about 40 cards a year, and we are pretty small. We are one the smallest, I believe, in the amount we are able to give back to the industry, the $3 million, and in the number of race dates we have.
All that is to say that the proposed change to the Criminal Code will impact us no matter what. However, we want to protect the racehorse industry by suggesting that the wording the Criminal Code has should protect the horse industry and not allow single sports wagering events like fixed odds to be taken on horse races.
We want to keep our product. We want to promote our product and get bigger in the end, but we want to make sure you understand that this is the passionate province. We are here to stay and we will basically just enforce single sports wagering while protecting our industry.