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Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

Tony Baldinelli

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Niagara Falls
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 69%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $102,468.80

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 244 - Nov/1/23
Mr. Tony Baldinelli
  • Nov/1/23 7:35:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, being in a border community, I can relay some of the examples we have from the four bridge crossings into my community and about our visitor base in terms of tourism in Niagara, which would be about 30% American. Those American visitors represented 50% of the spend. On the ArriveCAN app and the terrible image it portrayed because of wait times and the glitches it caused, there were, for example, 10,000 Canadians who were told they had to quarantine, because of a glitch. It was incorrect. Those types of things halted any attempt at tourism recovery in 2022. Why did it take the government until October to end the ArriveCAN app? People knew it was not working; it had never worked, from day one. On top of that, the government then spent, from January to August, $400 million on rapid testing capabilities when we knew infectious disease experts were saying that it was not needed. Again, the government was wasting money and denying us and the people in the tourism community the ability to recover, which they so badly wanted to do.
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Context: House Hansard - 84 - Jun/8/22
Mr. Tony Baldinelli
  • Jun/8/22 10:36:13 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-19 
Madam Speaker, yesterday we had an opportunity to meet with representatives from the Frontier Duty Free Association. Two of the three representatives at that meeting were from my riding. They told us that during the pandemic the revenues generated by these duty-free operations were down 90% to 95%. They approached governments for support, and at every turn they were rebuffed in trying to get support to continue their operations. Now that things are beginning to open, after the first two long weekends in both Canada and the United States, they are still 50% down. Again, we are tying the hands of our tourism sector behind its back. We need to allow them to do what they do best and let them welcome visitors from throughout the world. In my community alone, 23% of the visitor base is American, but they generate over 50% of the revenues. When they go home, they have an opportunity to visit a duty-free store, make purchases and then export that back into the United States. We are not allowing them to do that. It is time we make changes so we improve the tourism and hospitality sector.
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