Three Crises, One Industry: Tony Elenis on What's Really Squeezing Ontario Hospitality

From washing dishes at an 18-year-old's first hotel opening to leading the largest association representing Ontario's restaurants, hotels, and motels since 2008, Tony Elenis has watched this industry survive three defining shocks: the 2008 recession that shuttered 900 restaurants, a pandemic that gutted the workforce, and a post-COVID inflation squeeze he calls the worst of the three by far. In this wide-ranging conversation, ORHMA's President & CEO sits down with Cartesian's Sam to talk straight about the pressures reshaping hospitality: a temporary foreign worker cap slashed from 35% to 10%, restaurant margins collapsing from 17% in the early '90s to just 3-4% today, the 75% government tax stacked onto every bottle of alcohol, and the 3,000 Ontario restaurants lost in a single year. But this is more than a diagnosis. Tony lays out the industry's united pitch to Ottawa for permanent immigration pathways, previews a Dalhousie University study set to expose exactly where food pricing breaks down, and makes the case that hospitality's future is not brick and mortar, but people and digital fluency. As he puts it, quoting Walt Disney: you can build the most wonderful places in the world, but it takes people to run them. Watch the full interview below.