Mr. Speaker, the Canadian tourism industry had its best year in 2016. In the past 10 years, almost 20 million international tourists have visited different regions of our country, including my beautiful riding of Rivière-des-Mille-Îles.
Our government realizes that tourism is an important economic engine. It supports more than 637,000 jobs, which represents almost 2% of Canada's GDP. It is the biggest employer of youth and also the sector with the most SMEs.
Through Destination Canada, our government has invested $50 million in the tourism industry in order to more strategically target international markets where we can improve our tourism performance.
Our connecting America program has been very successful. Last year it increased the number of U.S. visitors to Canada by 17%.
Given that we will be celebrating Canada's 150th, we hope that 2017 will be a record year.