Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
The head of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada says businesses are struggling to stay afloat under a pile of debt and a dearth of overseas visitors.
In a poll of tourism operators, some 45 per cent said they were likely or somewhat likely to shut down within three years unless the government steps in to adjust their loan conditions.
"Unless there's some change to the payback system and the payback requirements, they're in danger of closing in the next three years," said Beth Potter, CEO of the trade organization.
"Everything from campgrounds to hotels to amusement parks to outdoor adventure," Potter said.
"Festival events oftentimes are run by non-profit organizations, and they're really challenged right now in paying back these loans," she said.
"It's dire."
Many businesses surveyed said they will not be able to make debt payments that are slated to come due in the next two years. The loans include those taken out through federal pandemic relief programs such as the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) as well as the Regional Relief and Recovery Fund and the Highly Affected Sectors Credit Availability Program.
The tourism association is calling on the federal government to extend the zero-interest repayment deadline for CEBA loans to Dec. 31, 2025, two years past the current deadline.
It is also asking Ottawa to boost the forgivable portion of fully repaid loans to 50 per cent, from up to 33 per cent, and to extend the qualifying deadline for that forgiveness to the end of 2024, rather than by the end of this year.
About 30 per cent of survey respondents, mainly small- and medium-sized operations, reported more than $250,000 in outstanding debt. One in five claimed debt between $100,000 and $250,000.
One reason for revenue struggles weighing on repayment efforts is a lack of tourists from abroad compared with 2019.
In March, the combined number of visitors to Canada and returning residents sat at 77 per cent of March 2019 levels, according to the most recent figures from Statistics Canada.
Potter said business travel in particular remains down relative to pre-pandemic totals. "Not only business events like conferences and trade shows and that kind of thing, but also transient business travel, with somebody flying into Toronto for a meeting and then flying back out again."
Americans have "cocooned within their own country," Potter said, adding that she remains hopeful they will return in force soon.
Even in the United States, whose travel industry rebounded more quickly than Canada's, business and international travel remain below 2019 levels -- "and business travel appears to have stalled at current levels," said TD Cowen analyst Helane Becker in a note to investors on May 30.
Labour shortages remain another problem, hobbling business owners' capacity to fill skilled positions, market and promote, serve customers at scale and manage their teams.
"We were in a challenging position with labour before the pandemic hit, and the pandemic has just accentuated it," Potter said.
The exit of many baby boomers from the workforce hasn't helped, she added: "They've said, `Nope, we're out, we're retiring, we're moving to the cottage.' We have lost a huge amount of leadership within the industry."
After several program extensions and top-ups, the government says on its CEBA website that all "repayment deadlines are now final and cannot be changed."
The CEBA program funded more than 898,000 small businesses and not-for-profits with $49.2 billion in interest-free loans of up to $60,000 after the COVID-19 pandemic set in, according to the government.
Conducted by Nanos, the online survey polled 149 financial controllers and accountants of businesses in the tourism sector between April 28 and May 12.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 20, 2023.
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.