Finance committee  Certainly, on having clarity on how the regulatory framework would actually operate, I think the other panellists have done a very good job of describing the importance of having clear, stable rules for how this would work. In our work in attracting foreign investment into the region, these are some very clear areas that companies look for when they're looking at setting up camp in a specific region, so yes, I would say that having clarity on how this would work is I think an important effort that should go forward from this discussion.

Finance committee  It's hard for me to really get a good assessment. It's a great question. What I can say is that we work really closely with all of our community partners, like the BIA teams and the Board of Trade, to stay as close to these companies as we can. We do a lot of training, so we get to see them very regularly.

Finance committee  Certainly there has been nothing that looked like this one. I don't think any of us has experienced a pandemic in our lifetime, or having that then spill over into a three-week period in which companies have had to endure that kind of environment. I certainly can't recall a period in which one and then the other happened.

Finance committee  It was the fact that it really paralyzed companies from being able to go about their normal business. Some of these businesses were afraid. They were afraid for their employees. They were putting security in and around the perimeters of their facilities. They could not physically operate, and to me that's just unacceptable.

Finance committee  Thank you for your question. We certainly have seen the same issue in the Ottawa region. It's quite simply that job seekers want to be in a position where they can have stable, steady employment. The single best thing we can do is to stabilize the job environment for these people.

Finance committee  Obviously the downtown core of Ottawa in particular depends quite heavily on certain levels of government business. I'm sure that's true in the Gatineau region as well. That would certainly help. I think there's a practical reality as businesses come back, including government, that there is a need for hybrid.

Finance committee  That's a great question. It's $20 million from the Canadian government and $10 million from the provincial government, so any company that went through the duress of those three weeks and was clearly impacted by it has access to up to $15,000. Tomorrow, they will able to apply—they will go through an attestation process in order to apply for it—and be able to take advantage of it.

Finance committee  As a company, our focus is on economic development and growth. I don't feel that I'm equipped to pass judgment on the usefulness of the Emergencies Act. What I can tell you is that we have invested so much time with companies to help them get through the pandemic in the last two years that three weeks was a very long time for these companies, and we were extremely grateful that it was brought to a close.

Finance committee  If you were any of the businesses at the Rideau Centre—just referring to the article—the Rideau Centre was completely closed and 180 businesses were unable to operate, which obviously has a dire effect on their bottom line. To perhaps add to the question a bit here, from our experiences in delivering Digital Main Street services across the Ottawa area, many of the businesses—I'm talking about two-thirds of the businesses that we did work with on Digital Main Street services during the pandemic—were self-identified as leaders, founders and operators who would consider themselves to be part of marginalized communities, so on top of everything else, they had to deal with the dire effects financially of an extra three weeks, which I think is completely unacceptable.

Finance committee  It's hard to separate just the period of the convoy from the rest of the pandemic. What it does is add an extra three weeks of torment to companies that have already done everything possible to maintain a stable environment, as stable as they could, and then they had to restart again.

Finance committee  Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Fonseca and standing committee members. I'll keep to the script here, recognizing that we have just five minutes for these sessions. I am pleased to join you here today, and I do want to acknowledge that I am on the unceded territory of the Algonquin people.