Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take this opportunity today to celebrate something very positive going on in the city of Yellowknife, that being the increasing number of Japanese tourists who travel a very long distance to make Yellowknife and the Northwest Territories one of their tour destinations in Canada. This month alone, Mr. Speaker, upwards of 2500 Japanese visitors are expected to visit our city. There are up to 300 of them in the city on any given day, looking up at our sky at night, visiting our shops and eating country food at our local restaurants.

Just last night I was at the Explorer Hotel at 9:00 p.m. and watched two school buses full of the tourists in their familiar red gear heading out into the night to see the northern lights. The sight of them warms my heart. I have also had the occasion last week to talk to the local restaurant operators, who are very happy to have these visitors fill their premises every night in what is otherwise a very slow tourist season.

Last year there were approximately 7000 Japanese visitors, but we are expected to surpass that by a large margin this year, as we have already exceeded that number with two more months left to go in the season.

Mr. Speaker, what we should recognize is that this is not simply an overnight success that happened by accident. A number of local operators have been working very hard for over a decade to perfect this very specialized product. The visiting tourists are catered to take advantage of everything our city and the North have to offer, above and beyond the northern lights, including dog sled rides, snowmobile tours, caribou viewing, snow shoeing and ice-fishing demonstrations.

It should also be recognized that this has been achieved without a lot of assistance from the government, and perhaps even in spite of it. All of the local operators and service businesses should be commended for making this possible.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, not everything about this is positive. If the number of visitors continues to grow at this rate, we will not have enough accommodation space in the city to accommodate them all. And the solution to this is not as simple as building an extra hotel to accommodate them. The demand for accommodation in the city during the summer is not nearly as high as that in the winter. In fact, the number of visitors to the North has experienced a steady decline over the last number of years.

The tourism industry needs the government's action to help develop our summer tourist product.