Thank you, Minister Handley. Final supplementary, Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Delorey, I have to rule that question out of order. It was not actually a question. Item 6, oral questions. The Member for Thebacha, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is addressed to the Minister of Finance because my constituents represent some hotels, and they have some questions regarding this hotel tax. Can the Minister indicate to the House the proportion of money spent by the government itself in terms of actually supporting the hotel trade by the travel of various government officials across the land?

The assumption is, Mr. Speaker, it is a significant portion, possibly more than 50 percent. If that is the case, then what does that mean that the Minister indicated would be the net revenue? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Handley.

Again, Mr. Speaker, that is a very specific question. I will have to take it as notice.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. The question has been taken as notice. Item 6, oral questions. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I saved my energy for the budget itself in committee, but my colleague from Hay River North has brought up a very important area, and the Minister of Finance commented that, in fact, a 4.7 percent reduction is going to proceed. It is very clear in the press release that they did state that they are maintaining service levels. In fact, that is not what is happening. We know from the tax-based municipalities there is a reduction. So to get the question going here, is this government in fact maintaining service at current levels? Is there a reduction? Is his press release an accurate press release? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. I heard three questions there. Mr. Handley, I think the main one was about service.

Mr. Speaker, this statement indicates that we as a government are maintaining the levels of service that people in the Northwest Territories have enjoyed over the past year or so. When we say that though, we are not saying that we do everything exactly the same as it was last year. There are some changes. They will probably find changes in every department, so I do not think we can take this statement out of the budget address to mean that we are doing everything exactly the same way.

In saying that, the service levels that our government and programs that we provide are essentially the same. Now there are some things we have reduced. Our capital program, for example, has been reduced by $10 million. So we have made those kinds of adjustments as we go along. There are other areas where we have made increases. I can say that in principle, we have maintained the same level of services and programs as people have enjoyed in the past, but not exactly the same. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Supplementary, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In fact, to be clear, the Minister is stating that this government is maintaining levels of service, but are you stating that municipalities, tax-based in this case, are going to change the level of service or increase taxes to tax-paying residents? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Minister of Finance, Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, the money that we provide to municipalities as a government is a block fund. How municipalities choose to deliver services within that block funding is up to them. I cannot say how they will account for the decrease of 4.7 percent, but we have the same problem with capital. We have reduced our capital. We cannot say that we are going to build everything that all of the departments had asked for, or maybe even have had in their capital plans. We have made some changes. We are confident that, in general, our levels of programs and services are of the same quality as we had before, but there are changes. Decreases in some areas, increases in some areas. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Final supplementary, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister indicates that there are some increases. An increase in taxes is the way it sounds. Is that the fact? Is the only area of increases in the area of taxes? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to go through all of the areas in which we have increases, but there are certainly increases in some areas, and one that jumps to mind immediately is in education, with the efforts we have taken and the commitments we have made to lower pupil-teacher ratio; the money that we have agreed to put into student support services. We can go on with a long list, but we will be getting into the specifics of each department's estimates. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Item 6, oral questions. The Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Finance with regard to the hotel tax. Listening to the answers that he is giving to other Members' questions in this House, and with what went on in the standing committee, I wonder if we should change the name of the shoes he was wearing to sneakers instead of runners. I am beginning to think that he is not giving us...my question, Mr. Speaker, is has he done a real calculation on what it will cost to collect this tax? In that calculation, did he calculate how much it will cost to enforce this taxation? Do you know how much it is going to cost the government to collect this tax? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Sounded like two questions, but we will lump it into one, collection costs. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our estimate, the Department of Finance's estimate is $100,000.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister commit to do some consultation on this issue? It is obviously a huge step and there are a lot of people who should be consulted. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.