Finance committee  Indigenous tourism is an incredibly important product as part of Canada's overall offering. We've seen huge growth in the level and the quality of indigenous product and the number of businesses and experiences that are being offered. Yes, we need to continue to foster the development of these great experiences, make sure that they are market-ready and take them to the world.

Finance committee  Yes, no problem. There are many indigenous tourism organizations across the country that work very closely with their local businesses and will continue to do so, and we would encourage them to continue to do that and to continue to work with the different levels of government as well.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Ste-Marie. We are looking for opportunities to travel without quarantine. This will be incredibly important. When you think about the resumption of travel, whether it's travelling for leisure, going to a music festival or an art festival or travelling for business, the cost of quarantine is going to be too prohibitive for us to see a resumption of travel at the levels we need to see.

Finance committee  It's most likely a decade. We are looking right now at numbers that say that, with supports continuing, it's going to take us until 2024-25 to get back to 2019 numbers, as it stands right now. If we open the border in October, that number might stay at 2024. The longer the border stays closed, the longer it's going to take us to recover.

Finance committee  There was mention of it, but there was not a plan included in the budget.

Finance committee  Not specifically, no. We are working very closely with ISED and with the BDC on the HASCAP issues. The ongoing support for the wage subsidy and the rent subsidy were addressed in the budget, but are not at levels that we think are sustainable for our industry.

Finance committee  There was certainly mention of a road map in the budget, but there is no plan at this point.

Finance committee  We would like to follow the guidance of Dr. Tam, the public health authority who says that once 75% of Canadians have one vaccine and 20% of Canadians have their second vaccine, we can see an easing of restrictions that will not impact our health care system. All the modelling suggests that will happen this summer and that we can reach that first milestone in June and that second milestone in July.

Finance committee  Yes. That is correct. We are looking for ongoing support for the festivals and live events sector, support not only for the people who put on those events but also the artists and vendors who participate in the events.

Finance committee  The proposed reduction of the wage subsidy and the rent subsidy starts in July, and this is the wrong time for the tourism industry. It's like this: Either we open the borders and allow travel to resume so that businesses can get back on track, start generating revenue and not have to take advantage of subsidies, or we subsidize them at the level they're being subsidized now until such time as we open the borders and people can get back to work and start generating revenue.

Finance committee  Prior to COVID, we were a $105-billion-a-year industry, contributing 2.3% to the nation's GDP. We know that 60% of tourism businesses across the country have told us that the access to the wage subsidy and the rent subsidy is why they are still in existence, are ready to welcome guests back and are ready to contribute to the economy again.

Finance committee  Exactly. We're asking for no travel passport within Canada.

Finance committee  We want to make sure that we have a seamless traveller experience for everyone, domestically and internationally. We're asking the federal government, when it's at the FPT tables, to really take on a leadership role and encourage the provinces and territories to come together and unite on a domestic travel policy so that there's one travel policy for Canada, which is the way it has been in the past, and not different requirements among the provinces.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. I'll respond in English. Our position is that in order to enter the country.... We want to make it easy for travellers to enter the country, so there needs to be a process in place for those who have been vaccinated and travellers who have not been vaccinated.

Finance committee  Thank you very much for the question. One real challenge with the HASCAP goes back to where businesses are getting their funding from. The tourism industry is an unusual industry in that we buy strange things that traditional banks don't really appreciate—things like float planes and boats.