Mr. Speaker, yesterday, as the new chair of the all-party tourism caucus, it was my pleasure to host a breakfast. We heard updates from TIAC, the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, as well as from Destination Canada.
As many of us know, we have had a banner tourism year so far. The hard work of industry, Canada 150 celebrations, and free Parks Canada Discovery passes all contributed to the momentum. The results are astounding. In the the first eight months of 2017 we welcomed more than 14.6 million visitors, an increase of more than 4% over 2016. The tourism sector is the number one employer of Canadian youth and it represents over 1.7 million jobs.
There will be a great opportunity to grow the industry from coast to coast to coast in 2018, the Canada-China Year of Tourism.
In my riding of Long Range Mountains, I am proud to say that I have over 540 tourism businesses that employ just under 5,000 people.
Hon. colleagues, let us talk tourism. It is part of every one of our ridings. Let us keep growing our industry together.