Mr. Speaker, with regard to the government’s spending on tourism initiatives, in response to (a), what are all programs government-wide that have a tourism component including those administered by agencies and crown corporations, the federal government has a number of programs, projects and initiatives which support the tourism industry in Canada. However, most of these programs provide assistance for Canadian businesses as a whole, not just tourism-related enterprises.
Since 2005-06, Industry Canada has published “Federal Contributions to Canadian Tourism”, an annual report which looks at federal government spending on the tourism industry. However, Industry Canada does not have an exhaustive list of all tourism support programs, since they are managed by other federal departments or agencies.
The report does, however, provide information on the status of a number of programs, projects and initiatives. For example, in 2006-07, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency invested over $12 million in 198 tourism projects through the business development program, and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada spent more than $2 million under its ready to work programs. It should be noted that a number of departments and agencies have broken down their expenditures using an analysis grid suggested by Industry Canada. This means that the information obtained by Industry Canada is not uniform and cannot be used to create a complete list of the programs, projects and initiatives in support of the tourism industry. The full report is available on the Industry Canada Web site.
The marquee tourism events program, MTEP, is the only program administered by Industry Canada that provides direct support for the tourism industry. The program was announced in budget 2009, to run for a two-year period, until the end of March 2011. The amount announced was $100 million over two years and about 15 people are assigned to the program.
In response to (b), what are the total costs for each of these programs, and the breakdown of all expenditures for each fiscal year since 2004-05, in 2005-06, the federal government spent $407.6 million on initiatives to support the tourism industry. The total was $404.2 million in 2006-07and it increased to $540 million in 2007-08. The amount for 2004-05 is not available.
In response to (c), what are the projected costs for the next 10 years, Industry Canada collects data on past years and does not make spending forecasts for future years.
In response to (d), what are the total number of employees, full-time, part-time and contract, assigned to each program, Industry Canada does not have any information with regard to the personnel assigned to any of the federal government’s tourism support programs, except for the program administered by Industry Canada mentioned in (a) above.
In response to (e), what are the performance indicators used to measure the program’s success and the results of any performance assessments made since fiscal 2004-05, Industry Canada does not have any information on the indicators used to evaluate the performance of the programs, other than the MTEP. The key indicators against which program results are measured for MTEP are the number of out-of-country and out-of-province tourists, the amount of tourism-related spending, and sustained or increased revenues for funded tourism events.
In response to (f), what are the total number of businesses helped by each program, including total numbers as well as the detailed breakdown listing them by name, location and whether they are recognized as a small business by the government’s definition, Industry Canada does not have any information on the number of businesses which have been helped by programs administered by other departments. Fifty-six businesses have received $45,574,742 assistance to November 5, 2009 from the MTEP. For a list of these businesses visit http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/dsib-tour.nsf/eng/qq00166.html.