Premier John Horgan announced what his government is doing with its $1.5 billion stimulus package and the tourism business is getting nowhere near what they were hoping for.
The industry was asking for $680-million out of that money, but this week learned their share will be $100 million with $50 million of that earmarked for a newly created task force.
Appearing on the NL Morning News, B.C. Finance Minister Carole James says it could take a long time before the tourism business sees some form of normalcy.
“Unfortunately for tourism it is going to be a long recovery because as we know, when it comes to international tourism which brings in most of our visitors a large portion in British Columbia,” she said.
“It’s going to be a while before our borders are opened up, before we see travel again because of course, making sure that the health and the safety of the people of our province is front and center.”
James expects the task force to have an immediate impact.
“So there’s in fact a little more than a hundred million dollars in the area of tourism and the focus to say more needs to be done,” she added.
“So, you mentioned the task force, it’ll be together in this next week. It will take a look at both short and long term supports and it will also have fifty million dollars to spend immediately on the kinds of ideas that they come forward with.”
The Minister says there are several business grants the beleaguered industry is eligible for.
“These will be non repayable grants. This will be money that they can use, to be able to pay their rent or help them with their bills until they get back on their feet again,” James said.
“So, that’s available and there’s actually a top up for tourism businesses in addition to the grants that others can get, between ten and thirty thousand, tourism will get an additional ten thousand on top of that.”
James says she gets it, “I can understand from the tourist industry’s point of view as people may know I’m a Victoria M.L.A. so I know tourism every single day in my community, the challenges that it’s facing and the impact it has on the entire community.”
As far as when the border will be reopening, it is anybody guess. This morning federal Public Safety Minister Bill Blair announced restrictions will stay in place for at least another month until October 21.
Liberals Unimpressed with Economic Recovery Plan
The MLA for Kamloops-North Thompson isn’t a big fan of the government’s economic recovery plan.
Peter Milobar told Radio NL the $100-or-so million dollars set aside for municipal infrastructure won’t go very far.
“That program spread out over across this province for infrastructure, it will do very little. It’ll be over-subscribed instantly and, you know, communities six months from now will be very disappointed when they don’t get approved for their projects,” he said.
Milobar accused the Horgan government of ‘kicking the can down the road’.
“It almost delays projects longer because municipalities will be waiting for a yes or a no and not actually proceeding with the project and they’ll lose a whole construction window,” Milobar said, adding private-sector business need help now in the form of an immediate cash infusion, not tax breaks 18-months down the road.
“Almost half of that $1.5-billion has now been earmarked to this – this tax program that will actually last to 2022. That money was supposed to be all spent this year…businesses need help now. The ones that are fortunate enough to survive to 2022 – that’s great. But, there’s a great many of them that aren’t even going to make it through this year and the help will be nowhere to be found.”
– With files from Kirk Fraser