Canada’s federal budget for 2023 is in the planning stages and ACTA’s pre-budget consultation paper to the House of Commons Finance Committee was submitted for parliamentary review earlier this week.

ACTA’s submission to the Finance Committee includes several priorities:

• Increased funding for travel and tourism labour support
• Improving the traveller experience through additional investments in airports, security, passport, and NEXUS services
• Allocated funding for hard-hit travel and tourism businesses, including travel agencies and independent travel agents, should border measures return
• Federal emergency loan deferrals and forgiveness for pandemic programs including CEBA and HASCAP
• The implementation of a federal policy to protect travel agent commission in all future airline support programs
• Increased investments in travel and tourism industry research services, including Statistics Canada and Tourism HR Canada
• Investments to build a regenerative and inclusive travel and tourism industry

Paradis says these priorities are reflected in ACTA’s recently released Tourism Growth Strategy submission, and in ACTA’s advocacy efforts at both the federal and provincial levels on the protection and growth of Canada’s travel agencies and independent travel agents.

Source: Travelweek