"Save Restaurants, Mr. Legault!" », Exclaim in chorus the restaurateurs of Quebec!
MONTREAL, Feb. 2021 / CNW Telbec / - The Association Restauration Québec (ARQ) is launching today the campaign “Save Restaurants, Mr. Legault!", In order to mobilize establishment operators, their suppliers and their employees to demand that the Government of Quebec immediately put in place a plan to reopen dining rooms for all regions in Quebec. The objective is to enable industry players to anticipate the resumption of their activities by offering them a predictable, structured and measured framework. This plan should provide restaurant owners with access to direct assistance, whether their establishment is open or not, or whether they wish to reopen soon or not.
The government must rethink its strategy and allow the dining rooms to be reopened to give a controlled space for socialization to a population that feels the need. Restaurant managers and staff across Quebec are ready to take up the challenge of ensuring a safe environment for customers, as those in restaurants located in the orange zone are currently doing.
The national director of public health himself told the National Assembly last December that the dining halls were closed to ensure the government's message was consistent with the ban on private gatherings, not because establishments have been shown to be COVID-19 outbreak sites.
After seven months of dining hall closures in almost all regions of the province over the past eleven months, resulting in losses of at least $ 5 billion in sales, and despite the fact that some government assistance measures have been set up, catering establishments are more fragile than ever and their survival threatened.
The economic recovery after deconfinement will likely be neither immediate nor sufficient to ensure the sustainability of the sectors of the economy most affected. Reception capacity will also remain greatly reduced. It is therefore essential that the Government of Quebec offer direct financial support to restaurateurs in this recovery plan, and not in the form of loans.
The ARQ believes that a subsidy program modulated according to the drop in income added to the sales of a reopening of dining rooms will finally allow managers to repay the many government loans taken out since the start of the pandemic. The ARQ invites all restaurant managers in Quebec, their employees and their suppliers to support the campaign by sending a postcard to Premier François Legault, by directly signing a petition entitled “Save the Mr. Legault restaurants! ”, Filed on the site www.change.org and by sending a letter to their MP by visiting the page https://arq.csaeconnect.ca/. You can also follow the campaign at Facebook.com/Sauvezlesrestos! as well as on Twitter at @sauvezlesrestos.
Founded in 1938, the ARQ is the oldest association of restaurant managers in Canada and the largest in Quebec. It brings together nearly 5,300 members operating a catering service in all forms.
SOURCE Association Restauration Quebec
