That would be all great if we weren't in the middle of a pandemic and you can't even cross the Nova Scotia-New Brunswick border without having to self-isolate for two weeks. It's going to make travelling, through the Maritimes at least, very difficult. In Saint John, New Brunswick, 79 cruise ships and more than 270,000 passengers will not be giving back to that local community. At home in Nova Scotia, it's about 118 or 130 vessels. In terms of a minimum financial loss, $165 million will not be generated. There will be job losses and permanent closures of restaurants and boardwalk shops. Prince Edward Island, which was expected to have a record attendance year, will lose visits of 97 ships and 154,000 passengers, and $60 million to the province's economy will be lost. Mr. Chair, my question to the minister is this: Who is ACOA going to be working with, and what kinds of programs are going to be available to help them through this very difficult year?
I agree with my colleague. The sector is really impacted by the pandemic and the economic crisis. It is a bit like the canary in the coal mine; it was the first impacted, and definitely it is still impacted. That's why we are in close contact with tourism leaders and operators across the country. Again, recently I had good conversations with the chambers of commerce all across Atlantic Canada, including Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador for the tourism sector. There is money for the tourism sector and tourism operators. They can have access to the wage subsidy. They wanted to have access to it until later in the summer, and it has been extended to the end of August. They have access to the rent relief program, the CEBA and ACOA funding. As mentioned many times in this chamber, Mr. Chair, if my colleague has clear examples to provide me, let's work together. Let's make sure the money flows to these people, because they need it.
You have only about a minute left, Mr. d'Entremont.
Mr.Chair, like the minister, last week, I spoke with Simon-Pierre Poulin, the director of Le Franco newspaper in Alberta, about the Sauvons Saint-Jean movement. He asked me why we could not continue to work on official languages and on modernizing the act even though Parliament is sitting in a different configuration. Unfortunately, I had to explain to him that many restrictions were associated with the current format of this fake Parliament. The pandemic is also threatening the protection of French in minority communities. The Liberal government made a commitment to modernize the Official Languages Act in the first six months of its mandate. How will it proceed?