Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is for the Minister responsible for Finance. It is about tax initiatives that he laid out in yesterday's budget speech. He mentioned that he was considering a possible hotel tax of five percent. I think that this would be ill-advised. I think there are several reasons for this. But certainly we have heard Ms. Lee talk on this. The Government of the Northwest Territories' spending probably makes up the bulk of hotel room spending. I think we would simply be taxing ourselves. I heard the Minister state publicly that he feels it would cost about $100,000 a year to administer and collect this tax. I would suggest that, quite possibly, estimates might even go higher, up to $200,000 or $250,000.
I also think the idea here was to initiate a tax that would then be put back into tourism. In future years, we have no guarantees that Assemblies will continue to do so. Once a tax is initiated, it is hard to change where that would go in the future. I am wondering if he has looked at any other tax initiatives. We have heard talk that possibly in future years we might see a payroll tax increase that would tax people who choose to work here and then fly out and not put money back into the northern economy. I am wondering if he has considered that in the past. Thank you.