Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues from Edmonton Centre and Niagara Falls for their speeches earlier, as we use the tabling of this report highlighting the appointment of Marsha Walden to Destination Canada as an opportunity to talk about tourism in this country. I also wish to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with the member for Banff—Airdrie.
There is no question that the industry has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been ongoing for a year now. Our external borders remain closed to foreign visitors who may want to come and discover all the splendour of our beautiful country. No one knows when they will be able to reopen.
Travel decreased dramatically in 2020, while 2019 had been a record year. There was some hope that by increasing testing and vaccination capacity, certain degree of recovery could be expected by the summer of 2021, but when the Prime Minister admitted that the vast majority of Canadians would not be vaccinated until September 2021, that dream was shattered for many people.
It is a national disgrace that we are a G7 country that is ranked 58th in the world in terms of vaccinations. We even had to turn to the COVAX fund for third world countries because the government put all its eggs in one basket at the start of the pandemic, falsely believing that the Chinese company CanSino would come to the rescue. Consequently, we are lagging behind and find ourselves at the bottom of the list for orders for other vaccines which, as we can see in Israel, work very well.
Today we learned that even with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that are finally being delivered this week, after weeks of delay, only 8% of the Canadian population will be vaccinated by the end of March, or one month from now. This means that festivals that were cancelled from last summer onwards will not be held again this year.
This is tragic and devastating news for the events industry. The Government of Canada did create a wage subsidy, as did many other countries, and we supported this measure, but the wage subsidy program is set to expire at the end of June. What will happen then? People want predictability. That is what we hear most in our talks with the tourism industry.
I know that it is not easy to predict a reopening date when governments are making day-to-day decisions based on the infection and hospitalization rates in our communities. That is why we are so focused on vaccination. Even with borders reopened, we know that very few people will want to come if there is a risk they will get sick, because if they contract COVID-19 while on vacation, public health officials will order them to quarantine immediately for 10 days when they receive a positive test result. That is difficult to do when travelling. As we saw last spring, it was not easy to repatriate all of the Canadians who were abroad.
Meanwhile, a lot of businesses are in survival mode. They are largely dependent on programs like the emergency wage benefit, the Canada emergency rent subsidy and the Canada emergency business account.
Will the government extend the programs indefinitely? That is a good question. This year's deficit will be around $400 billion, or maybe even more. How much will it be next year because of the government's inaction? Can we get an answer? It is not certain.
The sad reality that came out of our discussions with the hospitality sector is that the wage subsidy is still not 100% effective. The program was put in place to maintain an employment relationship between workers and their employers in the hope that they would return to work quickly after the first lockdown, but that is not at all what happened.
With the pandemic, there was a major labour shortage in our regions, especially in the regions in Quebec. Many regions like mine and even those east of mine in the Gaspé had a hard time finding workers. Instead of twiddling their thumbs, some decided to switch careers to another sector. Some might say that is a good thing. After all, there are no bad jobs in this country. As our esteemed former finance minister Jim Flaherty used to say, the only bad job is not having a job. We wonder what the government plans to do post-COVID to better match up future workers with the tourism sector, because there is a real fear that if we keep the sector closed for too long, the people will leave. That is already happening.
I was speaking with people in tourism just today. It will be extremely difficult to replace all the employees.
Earlier, one of my colleagues was saying that more than 500,000 people have lost their jobs in the tourism sector and that the vast majority will not return. The future is looking extremely difficult.
In addition, the unemployment rate is still very high. Efforts will have to be made to match available workers to available jobs. Last week, Radio-Canada reported that the number of long-term unemployed workers doubled over the past year. Does the government have any plan for getting new workers into a sector that many people are likely to have left following 18 to 24 months of inactivity? I look forward to hearing what my colleagues have to say about that.
Today, I got a letter from Frédérique Guignard, a young single mom in her 30s who was in the process of taking over her family's travel agency. In her letter, she requested my help with the catastrophic situation faced by charter tour operators, whom she described as the forgotten members of the tourism industry since the pandemic hit. She explained that, because of the extended border closure and the cancellation of cultural, sports and educational travel, charter buses have stood idle for nearly a year now. She said that, over the past year, her business has lost 93% of its revenue, which amounts to $700,000.
If I were a businessman and my company was reporting losses of $700,000 this year, I would be very worried about my future. Ms. Guignard is therefore quite right to be worried about hers.
Charter tour operators carry groups formed in advance, organized mainly by wholesale travel agencies, tour operators and domestic travel agencies that book charter coach services directly or indirectly. These carriers therefore play an important role in the mobility of tourists who come to visit our beautiful province, similar to air and rail transportation.
Ms. Guignard wants to share with the House the results of a study conducted by these carriers who are well aware that bus travel will not resume any time soon. Charter tour operators were not able to take advantage of the tourist boom of the summer of 2020. As it stands now, they do not see how 2021 will be any better. This crisis is expected to last until 2022 in the travel industry. A wait that long could destroy Ms. Guignard's business, which, she said, she will no longer be able to support in terms of its organizational structure and capital costs, as they require a great deal of funding considering that a fleet of coaches represents a liability of $600,000 to $700,000 per unit. That is to say nothing of the cost of skilled labour, since Ms. Guignard had to lay off half of her staff.
I understand that the government implemented programs, programs that we supported. However, Ms. Guignard is not able to continue to operate her business because she has lost 93% of her revenue.
Many industry stakeholders are in the same boat. I have had discussions with people who work in the events industry, which includes festivals, as my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue reminded us earlier. He spoke about Val-d'Or and sugar shacks, many of which are currently at risk and think they may have to close in the coming weeks. That is extremely worrisome.
My colleague spoke earlier about flexibility. The government needs to adapt to the realities of an industry as unique as the tourism industry, which reflects the vitality of all of our regions. From Vancouver to the Gaspé or the Lower St. Lawrence, where I live, the tourism industry is an extremely important aspect of the economy. I think that we need to find ways to support it in the long term and to provide it with some predictability because it will get going again by 2022 at the latest and the government needs to be there to help it do that.