International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  That is a really hard question to answer. What we know is that we lost 53% of international visitation into Canada—

International Trade committee  I would suggest that we were not zeroing in on just one thing and that ArriveCAN was one of—

International Trade committee  I agree with Mayor Diodati's recommendation. We need to get the word out. I'm looking at organizations like Destination Canada, the provincial and territorial tourism marketing agencies. They will need to incorporate this kind of information in their campaigns to the U.S. for us to try to overcome what has been a barrier to Americans coming into Canada.

International Trade committee  For businesses in border towns, what they will remember—and what they are still stinging from—is the impact of the passport requirement post-9/11. Canadians are much more adaptable to new technologies and new requirements than Americans are, and I say that with a large American family of my own.

International Trade committee  ArriveCAN certainly had a huge impact at the land border crossings. These were crossings where people were not used to having to make any other kind of declaration. They would drive up and have a conversation with the customs border agent, and would show their documentation coming into Canada, whether it was their driver's licence or their passport.

International Trade committee  We're expecting that it's going to take a number of years to get those numbers back up to where they were prepandemic.

International Trade committee  Madam Chair and members of the committee, I would like to thank you for inviting me here today. My name is Beth Potter and I am the president and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. I will be presenting my remarks in English, but I will be happy to answer your questions in French during the question period.

International Trade committee  It certainly is having a negative impact on the number of international visitors who are arriving. The forecasting that we've seen looks at different countries and how fast we expect they will come back. Right now, the U.S. will be the last country to get back to 2019 numbers. It will take us until almost 2026 to do so.

International Trade committee  I would. It's really hard for visitors—and we have 10 million day visitors coming across the border from the U.S. every year—to complete the ArriveCAN app, because they don't have an address in Canada to which they're going and they don't have a place where they can quarantine. They are having a really big challenge; thus, we are seeing up to 50% fewer U.S. travellers coming across for day trips as it stands right now.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  The fact that you have both—the ArriveCAN app and the change in the vaccine mandate that was announced this week—has just made it much more confusing for Canadian travellers and for international travellers who are considering Canada as a destination.

International Trade committee  I think that's really hard for us to understand. I do think we've seen all border restrictions having a massive impact on the return of our industry. It has certainly put Canada behind—from a competitive standpoint with the other G7 countries, at least—many other countries in the world, when it comes to regaining our travel and tourism portfolio.

International Trade committee  Thank you very much, Madam Chair. My name is Beth Potter. I am the president and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. I will be speaking in English, but I will be happy to answer your questions in French during the question-and-answer period. Before making my remarks, I want to acknowledge that we're gathered here on the unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Anishinabe and Algonquin.

Finance committee  The tourism and hospitality recovery program and the wage and rent subsidies that fall within that are due to be cut in half in the middle of March. That decision and those parameters were put in place before additional restrictions for omicron came to be. We're looking for an extension of the program to ensure that businesses are able to continue to keep their staff and continue to pay their bills while they ramp up later than expected for what we hope to see being a robust session.