Industry committee  Good afternoon. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, for having me today. It's lovely to see some familiar Zoom faces. Recognizing that the breadth and scope of this committee study is quite diverse, I'd like to use my time here today to focus on our industry's most burning priorities: labour shortages and inflation.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  The short answer is absolutely yes. The Atlantic immigration pilot program was a phenomenal success by almost any metric. Our operators in the region were positively thrilled about it—about the outcome, about the relative ease with which they were able to access that enthusiastic skilled labour, and about the enthusiasm with which they often stayed on, as long as they could, to work those permanent pathways.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I just need 12 seconds.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Thank you very much. The short answer is yes, I do think the restaurant industry was overlooked. Yes, I do think the restaurant industry frequently is overlooked when it comes to labour shortages, because there is the idea that there's always a restaurant at the end of your street.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sure. I'm happy to jump in. Thank you for the question. I think that one of the really interesting challenges facing the restaurant and food service industry—both during this current apocalypse, but more importantly in the before times and what we hope will be a strong revival and recovery—is the discrepancy between the multicultural metropolitan cities and the more rural areas.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Sure. I'm happy to comment. I think one of the interesting pieces coming out of this conversation, again, from before the crisis but also during, is the challenge around taking full advantage of the TFW program. There's an administrative burden involved in even applying. Again, as Olivier mentioned, that burden is financial.

Finance committee  Absolutely. One hundred per cent. It is a terrible and depressing likelihood. We are staring down the barrel of a gun here. A slow vaccine rollout is frustrating and disappointing from a Canadian perspective, but I also think pinning all our hopes on a vaccine rollout isn't a strategy for reopening.

Finance committee  I don't think I could possibly overstate how desperate the picture is for restaurants, local communities and small businesses across the country. These supports are absolutely crucial. We can't even begin talking about recovery until we start talking about survival first. While we are sensitive to the fact that money doesn't grow on trees and the government probably can't keep printing it, the reality is—as one of the other witnesses said here today—that a government budget is not the same as a household budget.

Finance committee  Yes, we were hit first. We were hit hardest. As I mentioned, we lost more employees in the first six weeks than the entire Canadian economy lost in the 2008 recession. That also means we stand ready to rebuild those jobs exceptionally quickly. The caveat to that, of course, is the fact that we need to survive long enough to have a place to create those jobs, so for us it really comes down to the key pillars of the wage and rent subsidies.

Finance committee  Thank you so much. I'm happy to help everyone's horn get a bit tooted here. One of the really frustrating aspects of this particular apocalypse is the inconsistent application of restrictions, lockdowns, rolling restrictions and ongoing lockdowns, and how they vary from province to province and from region to region.

Finance committee  Yes, absolutely. I appreciate the CERB comment and remarks regarding transmission rates. One of the frustrating points about the Ontario government is the lack of transparency in terms of sharing its data. Right now, we're working off the numbers from Dr. Henry in British Columbia, which has been the only region to share numbers so far, and restaurants clock in at less than 0.1% of transmission data.

Finance committee  I would. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your question. One of the key points is something I touched on. Independent operators in restaurants and small business centres across the country are really the heart and soul of local communities. They anchor local communities. We've seen restaurant owners have no choice but to add debt to their balance sheets in order to survive and to remain open, but the amount of debt is no longer sustainable for many, if not most, and it absolutely cannot be a long-term solution for our industry.

Finance committee  Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here today. It's lovely to see some familiar Zoom faces. I'd like to use our time here to walk you through a quick overview of what the restaurant industry has gone through since the start of this apocalypse, as well as what we are uniquely situated to do to help kick-start Canada's economic engine as part of our proposed recovery plan.