Madam Speaker, we have limited time and debate will come to an end pretty quickly, but I have a few key points to summarize the debate. Maybe the riding I represent best exemplifies some of the realities. It really has been the best of times and it has been the worst of times.
The riding of Huron—Bruce, the entire western shore, borders on Lake Huron. During the COVID pandemic we have had a tremendous uptick in tourism. People have come from all over the place to rent cottages, buy cottages, develop real estate and stay at hotels. It has been one of the biggest booms of all times, with four wheelers, boats and RVs, a very prosperous times.
On the other side, some restaurants are forever damaged financially as well as banquet halls and subsidiaries such as rental shops that support weddings. Also, different companies provide shuttle services to the airport in my area and tour bus operators, all of which have been damaged permanently. Years and years of toil and hard work have been obliterated in the matter of a year.
In northern Ontario, tour operators who maybe have a resort or a fishing lodge have been decimated. I talked to a tour operator today, who said that they would be able to make it through this year, but that it would be game over at the end of 2021 for many if they did not receive support. We need to be mindful that for some it has been very good times and for others it has been absolute desperation. This is why we will need further supports.
There has been a lot of talk today about airlines and support. We need to look no further than what is going on at Air Canada to see all the moves it has made to try to stay alive. The money from the wage subsidy is called survival. Air Canada did a stock issue, debt, did all sorts of different things with airplane deliveries, but the airlines will need some financing to re-establish routes and rebuild the 10 years worth of networks or their business models will be forever changed. For example, we heard earlier today about two airports in Saskatchewan, one in Saskatoon and one in Regina, and about all the flights that had left.
The CEO of Porter Airlines made something very clear, and it really highlights one of the huge failures of the Liberal government. The United States vaccinates more people every day than have been vaccinated in our entire country. That is absolutely unacceptable. That will forever be a mark on the government going forward and when the next election comes, there definitely will be a focus on what happened. Another thing he mentioned was the head-scratcher going on at our major airports regarding quarantine, but being able to cross at land border crossings.
Porter was going to start flying March 29, but because of this, it will may be the middle to the end of May because of the actions of the government, not ours, and these were his words and not mine. Anybody who has been to Toronto can see those airplanes taking off from the island airport what seems like every two minutes, but it has not turned a propeller in almost a year. These are the things we are talking about today.
Air Canada has let go 20,000 people. There is not one town in my riding that has 20,000 people. That is 20,000 people who do not have a job and would love to get back to work.
The other issue is around financing. If we go back, we will remember that the government left out credit unions. It is as if it had not even heard about credit unions. The credit unions and the opposition parties had to fight to ensure they were able to also offer CEBA loans to their customers. They had calls from all sorts of colleagues, from chambers and business improvement areas, wondering why the big charter banks were able to offer these loans but credit unions were not. Going forward, we have to ensure we fight for credit unions.
The other thing I wanted to mention was Community Futures. It is a government-backed organization and there are two offices in my riding, Bruce and Huron, and just over in Grey, there is Saugeen. They provide tremendous loans to small businesses and quite likely to those who need it the most and they are the fastest and most effective.
If we think of the motion we have presented today, I do not really look at it as a political motion. It is not meant to drive a wedge between one another. To me, it is a summation of things that we need to do to help not all businesses, but those that need it the most. We cannot do that if we do not have a budget. The businesses know, the associations know, the chambers know what needs to be done.
Last, on charities, I would suggest, and a lot of people would support this, that we look at the deductibility for people giving to charities. A lot of people across the country have a charity they love. They want to support them and maybe even give them some lifetime savings or inheritance. Maybe if there were a little extra enticement to give, they would do it. The great thing is that the money stays local. It stays in their community. Instead of having a large government decide, it would allow them to direct it to their food banks, to women's shelters or to wherever they feel it would do the best.
We all need to work hard in the House to support and defend those people who put their finances on the line each and every day. We need to do something to ensure they are supported, not just for survival but for the revival of their businesses.