Provincial and territorial ministers responsible for tourism, meeting in Toronto earlier this week, called upon the federal government to take a more active role in ensuring the continued growth of Canada's tourism industry.
Prince Edward Island's tourism minister, Greg Deighan, was in attendance along with the other tourism ministers and noted, "Air transportation is a critical method to use to get people from the main gateways of the country like Toronto and Halifax to surrounding areas." The Minister added, "Affordable, accessible, domestic air traffic is vital to move people from these gateways, and we must ensure that areas like Prince Edward Island are included in these prerequisites."
The provinces and territories agreed that a meeting with Industry Canada Minister Brian Tobin, as the lead federal minister for tourism, is essential to address concerns around a number of key issues, such as airline restructuring, federal-provincial-territorial funding agreements and national parks policy.
"All levels of government must work together and with the industry if Canada is to get its fair share of the estimated $1.5 trillion the world's tourism industry is expected to generate by the year 2010," said Ontario Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, Tim Hudak, Chair of the meeting. "Air access, affordability and competition are priorities for all of us," said Hudak. "Policy must be developed with a strong regard for the needs of the tourism industry, which employs 7.5 times more people than the airline industry, and cannot be based solely on the vested interests of Canada's air carriers."
The Ministers agreed to move forward with co-operative efforts relating to research and product development. They also agreed to meet again in 2002 in Halifax.
Canada's tourism industry is a key economic sector that annually generates $54 billion and 520,000 direct jobs.
Minister Deighan took advantage of the Toronto location for the Federal Provincial tourism ministers meeting to join PEI representatives at Rendez-Vous Canada, a five-day international marketplace being held in the Toronto Metro Convention Centre. This event, which is in its 25th year, sees over 410 travel buyers from all over the world promoting and selling tourism products and services to tour wholesalers and tour operators from 27 countries.