Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon to all.

I represent an industry that is highly capital intensive, has low margins and is very fragile: the bus and motorcoach industry across our country. In the last 15 years, we've had a consolidation. We've had a rationalization within our industry, with fewer and fewer motorcoach and bus operators working within our Canadian marketplace. Unfortunately, in the context of that type of industry, we've had COVID-19 in the last year and we have COVID-19 with us for 2021.

It's been devastating, not only for my company but for the industry. To put it in perspective, when I compare our 2019 financial statement results to 2020 and our projections for 2021, it is a bleak picture. We feel in our industry that 2021 is not going to be any better than 2020 and could be worse.

In 2019, our best year in the business, we did $42 million in gross sales, 50% of which—$21 million—was directly related to the tourism sector, cruise ship arrivals and multi-day tours. We did not have, in 2020, cruise ship arrivals or multi-day tours. We do not expect cruise ship and multi-day tours for 2021, so we have thousands of motorcoaches parked across this country with no work, and it's going to be two years back to back.

We are essential to tourism. We are essential to passenger travel. I realize that today nobody really needs a motorcoach, but we have to realize that in May 2022—what we're considering the rebound year—our buses are going to be essential again, as we are an economic driver in our country. It's something to think about.

When I look at our Maritime Bus intercity division—which we operate here in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick—and at our municipal transit on Prince Edward Island, I see that we are down by over 50%. That's better than having no business at all, and the gratifying element of intercity transit is that our buses are on the road. We are providing essential services. We have time-sensitive parcel freight each and every day that has to be moved. We do blood work to make sure hospitals within our Maritime provinces have the blood that is needed out of the Canadian blood supply in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. At least the buses are moving. Operating expenses are higher than revenue in this stressed COVID environment, but they are moving.

From $42 million in sales in 2019, we lost $33 million in gross revenue in 2020 and we're expecting in 2021 another $30 million lost in gross revenue. You ask, how do companies like ours survive? We definitely have to give credit to the programs of 2020. They were rolled out quickly. They were shotgun—I realize that—but by being quick and by being shotgun, they got money into our bank accounts.

We have the wage subsidy. We have the rent subsidy. That was very effective for our industry and a company like ours. We had the RRRF—the relief and recovery program—which was put in place fast, with no charter bank involvement at all and done through our regional development organizations. It was a perfect program.

I think of our provincial and municipal transit, and the safe restart program to municipalities to help them with their transit operations. It was effective, and we hope that type of program will be extended on April 1. We hope the RRRF program will be extended on April 1. We are saying now that extending wage and rent subsidies for the hardest-hit industries has to be considered from June of this year. Those are the types of programs that got us to where we are now.

The huge losses we have experienced.... Last year, we had a six-month deferral with our chartered banks on principal, and that was a huge cash flow savings, but the industry has been decimated. It's devastating to look at the staff who are not with us. It's devastating to look at the financial results, but we have to be positive.

When I look at our industry, I look at intercity. I have always said that intercity is public transit on provincial highways, no different from public transit on municipal streets. Why can't intercity operators be eligible recipients of public transit infrastructure funds on a capital subsidy? Could we be recipients of safe restart programs? When we're in the rural areas, we are the public transit system for those areas. We were advocating, prior to COVID-19, that we should be eligible for similar programs to municipal transit.

Last week, we submitted for the preconsultations a brand new group called the coast-to-coast bus coalition, so we can re-establish intercity busing from the east to the west and throughout our country with a feeder system. I've always said that we need to reinstate the trans-Canada line. You need a trans-Canada bus line—companies aligning to move parcels and passengers. It's something we have to think about.

Then you get into these motorcoaches—the thousands that are sitting—and I ask you to consider this, please. When they are sitting, how do we get them ready, willing and able to go to work in May 2022? When it's the cruise ship ports, we all know that cruise ships don't dock if there are no buses on the wharf. Can we have a federal program of monies going into the ports? Can those ports have the discretionary power to administer those funds for strategic service providers to cruise ships? Could there be an arrival fee per passenger to help the ports administer funds for strategic service providers? Could there be a program put in place for motorcoaches? Could it be a $40,000 loan for each and every motorcoach? If you bring your buses back to work in 2022, 2023 or 2024, could it be forgivable? Bringing buses back ensures we are the economic provider that this industry has been so good at being: able to support many businesses but now asking for support.

I'll close by saying that—not just for my industry, the motorcoach industry, the tourism industry and highly impacted businesses, but for all industries—succession planning is something we are going to have to think about. Many of us in business are older. I am 67 this year. I did not expect that this was how I was going to finish my business career. I am committed to standing with my company and my three sons who are with me in this company, to make sure we get through and beyond COVID-19. However, with the stress, the strain and the responsibility, it's almost “enough is enough”. There should be good tax considerations for succession planning as we pass the torch on to the next generation.

Thank you very much.

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