Mr. Chairman I do not think that all strategies have to take three years to be successful or to be good strategies. I think that the Non-Renewable Resource Development Strategy is a good example. That one only took us a couple of months to pull together, consultations ongoing and I think that it is a good strategy with wide buy-in.
I look at the amount of work that has already gone into the tourism strategy and I do not see it as being a three-year exercise to do the consultation and pull together a good strategy well in advance of the next fiscal year, well in advance so that people know how the money that we generate from the hotel tax will be distributed. I do not think that it is an issue.
I have to say that some of the reasons and some of the concerns that hotel owners have expressed are exactly the reasons like poor occupancy during the period that we do not have Japanese tourists. That is exactly the reason why we need to generate more activity in this area. It is not a time to dig ourselves into a corner somewhere. The biggest operator of tourists in the Territories, the man who brings us 8,000 or 10,000 Japanese each year, is a strong supporter of this kind of initiative.
The Northwest Territories Tourism Association came to my office and they told me that they worked with a consultant who has done work across Canada and can show us that five percent makes absolutely no difference to business levels, in terms of tourists coming here. When it gets into the neighbourhood of 20 percent, it begins to make a difference.
There is a lot of work that has been done already. It is not as if we are starting fresh. So I do not have any doubt at all that we can produce the strategy in the time frame that I have set. Thank you.