Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take this opportunity to speak to the principle of this bill and to advise the House that I will be voting against this bill. At the same time, I would like to ask for a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I had a grave concern about this idea when it was first announced by the Minister on June 21st, but I reserved my conclusion on this because I was hoping I would get enough information to satisfy me that this is something that will be good for the North and that it will do what it is going to do and what it purports to do as proposed by the Minister.

Mr. Speaker, I must say it has not been easy to go against one of the popular Ministers of this government. I remember an old lady coming up to me and saying, "I have known Joe for all my life and I know he will always do the right thing."

-- Applause

I know he means well. I know he means well and I know he does good things in many areas. However, I must tell him that he still has more work to do on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I think a lot has already been said by my fellow Members on this side. If I could just go down my list and highlight the things that perhaps have not been mentioned or something that I think that deserves mention again.

Mr. Speaker, I really want to say that our vote here is not about who loves tourism more or who loves Joe Handley more or who loves taxes the least. I think it really is about good policy making and good law making.

Mr. Speaker, I realize the Minister really believes in consulting with the people. I know he has done all that but he must have received answers that he really did not want to hear. For example, he mentioned that he hired Nexus, the consulting firm, to do a survey on this. In answer to questions in the House yesterday, he mentioned that he is not going to have the result of the survey until the end of the month. Yet he feels that he is going to introduce this bill anyway, regardless of what is in that, Mr. Speaker.

As well, Mr. Speaker, the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce; I know it has been a very difficult decision for that committee. Yellowknife members have met with them. We have discussed it a lot and basically the Chamber of Commerce thinks they will support it under eight conditions. I must say, Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to support it if the Minister is prepared to meet those eight conditions. However, the letter, which was tabled in the House yesterday, says that the Chamber of Commerce has not received the responses that it was looking for from the Minister as of yet. I think if the Minister could keep his good name and work on that and rethink this one.

Mr. Speaker, I think there is major confusion as to how this tax will apply in enforcement and application. Mr. Speaker, I think we have to be really aware that the tax, once instituted without all of us, is there for posterity. You may think if the Minister says, "Well, if it does not work in three years, I will get rid of it." I do not know if anyone could give an example of any government anywhere who has intentionally removed a tax once it has been instituted unless it was replaced with something more favourable to that government. So to say I know what I am doing and that I will get rid of it if I do not think that it works just will not do, Mr. Speaker.

I am worried about loss of competitiveness that this tax will have on the industry. Mr. Speaker, in the summer I talked about the radio reporting on this bus operator in Toronto who was quoted as saying on CBC that he would rethink about sending visitors to Inuvik because their cost of hotel there is too expensive. I had many discussions with the operators in Yellowknife who cater to Japanese tourists and I am told over and over again that market is very price competitive and the Japanese do not come here with pockets full of money ready to spend in Yellowknife. They count every extra benefit they will get from that. They will not hesitate to eliminate Yellowknife or the Northwest Territories as a possible destination for their very valuable holiday dollar.

Mr. Speaker, I have also mentioned in this House about the fact that for some local businesses, five percent of their revenue could constitute the money that they spend on fuel annually. In this House, we have heard many questions here about the rising fuel costs and what kind of impact that would have on business operators such as hotel operators, as this will not be a good thing in the near future.

Mr. Speaker, I have already heard from people who said that a five percent increase in hotel fees will be more than a five percent increase in the final bill because most businesses will try to increase the cost on top of five percent, perhaps up to ten percent, in order to ensure that they recover the cost of collecting this tax.

Mr. Speaker, I have not had a chance to read every clause of this bill, but I see that it is quite thick and it has something like 66 clauses and about 30 of them have to do with enforcement. The Minister has assured this House over and over again that it only takes one PY to enforce this law. However, I have to doubt that very much, Mr. Speaker. I will say that enforcing 30 clauses will take more than one person to do the job.

Mr. Speaker, I compared this to the payroll tax where I would think the law to collect payroll tax is much more straightforward because almost everyone in the Northwest Territories who works here in the North has to pay that tax and, even then, we are experiencing difficulties collecting that tax. They have a need to hire extra people to make sure that the southern businesses coming to the North are paying the tax and they are registered to do so.

Hotel tax is much different, Mr. Speaker. We do not know where everybody is. There will be some bed and breakfasts that will be eliminated, some not, some lodges. How could anyone sitting in a Yellowknife office know who should pay tax, how much they should pay, or whether they paid it or not? Would it not end up that we would have five to ten people enforcing a tax which, in my view, will not bring any more than really $500,000 net? Mr. Speaker, I have grave concerns that this tax will be collected from Northerners. It will be the people who work here, who travel in the North on personal visits as well as government businesses.

Mr. Speaker, something that has not been mentioned that is of great concern is the impact this will have on our formula financing from the federal government. I think most people have a basic understanding that we have very limited power to institute a new tax because every dollar we gain on a new tax, the federal government will take 80 cents away. It does not make any sense to me that we will institute a tax that will take the money from our people and then it will add to business operators like hotels in small towns, not necessarily in Yellowknife, and then to have 80 cents of that taken away at the end of it. I do not think that is the kind of legacy that I want to leave behind as a lawmaker, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister mentioned that it is not fair to keep saying that you have to eat the cost from within. I must admit, Mr. Speaker, I am one of the people who has been speaking that way. I have suggested that. I think everyone out there really understands the financial difficulty this government is in. I think the business community has shown tremendous willingness to really work with the Minister and really work with this government to come up with alternatives. I commend them for that. I think that with that sort of willpower and will out there, the Minister can do a lot.

However, the problem, Mr. Speaker, is that even though this government has been saying and everyone knows about the financial difficulties, it has not demonstrated yet that it has taken internal measures to do cost cutting. Mr. Speaker, when I asked in a Written Question about the cost of travel that this government spends, the Minister answered last week, giving information on money spent on travel. It shows that last year for the fiscal year 1999-2000, no less than $25 million were spent on duty travel by government employees. I believe that it does not include the money spent by agencies, boards and commissions or any other contract being done by anybody who is doing business on behalf of the government.

So there are millions of dollars that are being spent on travel. Assuming that this tax will really only bring about $500,000 income, I do not think it is unreasonable to say reduce your travel money by $500,000. If you are spending about $30 million on travel, asking him to cut $500,000 is not a lot.

Second of all, Mr. Speaker, as a Yellowknife MLA, I would not actively promote cutting any government jobs. I think we have suffered enough. However, I think some Members here have noticed the level of vacancy in government departments. I believe Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development alone has dozens of vacancies and every vacancy is calculated into about $100,000 per PY. If there are 50 vacant positions, that is $5 million.

Mr. Speaker, all I am saying is the Minister and this government have so much to work with. He has a great deal of credibility. He has a lot of support from the community. He is in charge of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development and Finance, so he has all the leverage that he needs to do good government policy making. I believe for someone who is in charge of a $750 million government budget and $70 million with RWED, it should not be that difficult for him to come up with $500,000 to help the tourism industry that he loves without additional burdens on small businesses and industries. Saying that, I am not instituting this tax because I really love the tourism industry, which when the people first heard that, it sounded too much of an oxymoron.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that I have said everything that I could on that. I appreciate the Minister's effort. I am going to tell him that I will work with him on any other initiative that he could bring. Maybe this could be revisited once he sorts it out, but as it stands now, I cannot support it, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.