Agriculture committee  That's an excellent question. Mr. Cochrane spoke about this earlier. Throughout all of the food supply chain, the majority of the entities before us, for example the producers and the distributors, pass on the hike to the next guy. Unfortunately, when it is our turn, we have to absorb the increases as much as possible, and that's what we try to do, because we can't pass on the total price increase to customers.

Agriculture committee  Yes. Our aim is to keep prices as low as possible and maintain enough of a profit margin to survive. That is where we are at currently.

Agriculture committee  I'm in favour of doing away with the LMIAs as quickly as possible. IRCC also needs more resources. You're absolutely right when you say that it's possible to lose employees when they return with an open work permit. This happens for restaurants, as you said. It's a real problem.

Agriculture committee  Staff shortages are most definitely the biggest problem. It why our costs have gone up by 20%. As I mentioned in my opening statement, we are operating at 80% capacity. Why? Because we don't have the staff. That's why in my last comment, I included recommendations on foreign workers and labour.

Agriculture committee  There's more to it than that. The subject that your committee is looking at today is inflation. You should know that the rate of inflation was absolutely unbelievable last year. Even over the previous year, for example, the price of all dairy products shot up by 12.4%, whereas before the COVID‑19 pandemic, the rate was usually 1.2% up to 2%.

Agriculture committee  Yes, they definitely helped. Definitely, we were pleased that the federal government was there and was present. Now what we want to make sure of is that everyone will be able to reimburse. We want the subsidies and the loans to be reimbursed. Also, you extended the CEBA loan twice, and we were extremely pleased with that.

Agriculture committee  Unfortunately, I don't have that information with me, and my apologies for that.

Agriculture committee  Of course: 2023 and still on mute. My apologies. We thought the worst for us was everything that is food related, but we unfortunately realized in the past 12 months that the worst in terms of inflation touches labour costs, touches amenities and touches insurance—when we can get insurance, because it's a real problem.

Agriculture committee  If you allow me to be extremely honest, I receive calls—

Agriculture committee  I receive calls, not only during the day but sometimes during weekends, from restaurant owners—independent ones mostly—literally crying over the phone, and saying that before COVID they had $200,000 in the bank, and now they are in debt by $200,000, $300,000, or $500,000. They took additional mortgages on their houses.

Agriculture committee  The short answer is that more restaurants will close, unfortunately. It's extremely difficult. Thank you very much for listening and taking notes about the numbers, because they are really important. When I say that now, following COVID, the pre-tax profit margin is between 2% and 3%....

Agriculture committee  Unfortunately, I don't have that forecast. Speaking of the local restaurants, what we also see is that the owners of these independent restaurants are working more and more, because labour costs have increased by 20% because of labour shortages. They were already working 50 to 55 hours a week.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much for having me. I'm Olivier Bourbeau, vice-president, federal and Quebec, at Restaurants Canada. Restaurants and the many small and medium-sized businesses that make up the Canadian food service sector are a critical pillar of our culture, economy, labour market and local communities.

Finance committee  You highlighted an important point when you talked about loans over loans over loans. We know that the federal government has tried to help. HASCAP is an example where the government wants to provide support, but there is no forgivable part and there's 4% interest, so this program does not apply to the hardest-hit sector and to small and medium-sized businesses.

Finance committee  We understand that the government would like to stop the wage and rent subsidies in September because that is the target date for vaccinations to be completed. That said, since the restaurants will reopen, maybe at the end of summer or gradually, September does not mean that we will be operating at 100% because, with this tenseness, we will operate at 50% or 60% maybe.