The Coalition of Hardest Hit Businesses is comprised of businesses in the tourism, travel, hospitality, arts, festivals and business events sectors, who collectively employ almost 2 million people. Many sectors were impacted by COVID-19, but few as severely as ours. Faced with necessary ongoing public health and travel restrictions, we have seen thousands of festivals, concerts, conventions, Indigenous tourism experiences, fairs, exhibitions, and business and sporting events cancelled, leaving our businesses without revenue for the past 8 months. This will remain the case until at least the Summer of 2021.

 

Our latest survey results demonstrate that without new financing, almost 70% of respondents will not make it to the summer and over 40% will not make it to the end of February. The need for an immediate infusion of liquidity is urgent. Without new financing, the majority of our businesses will face permanent closure, which will impact hundreds of thousands of jobs.

 

We were pleased to see the announcement of the Highly Affected Sectors Credit Availability Program (HASCAP) in the Fall Economic Statement. There is an urgent need for this critical program to be rolled out immediately and ready to receive applications in early January to ensure that Canada’s hardest-hit businesses do not shut their doors permanently before the program launches, which would leave tens of thousands of vulnerable employees out of work.