Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Finance, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we keep hearing there should be something coming. I may have said we should hear something in late summer or early fall, I do not know. That last conversation we had with the Minister of Finance and the Minister of DIAND, they are saying wait until fall. The Premier and I tried to pin them down to something more specific. We have not been able to do that. They indicate they are working on it and they are trying to find some way of being able to provide more assistance to us, but unfortunately, I do not have anything specific in terms of a time or a dollar amount. All I can say is that I hope it will be in time for our budget, but I cannot guarantee that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, not to my knowledge.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Supplementary, Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. There were two questions there, if she could look into it and follow up on it. The Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will check to see if the department has ever done any research on dust. I do know that allergies and asthma are two illnesses that seem to be on the rise everywhere. We consider ourselves fortunate to have clean air. We do not have smog readings like they do in heavy industrialized areas, but certainly dust can be a contributor to asthma and allergies.

I just want to point out that the Member is absolutely right when he talks about tobacco. We have a tobacco strategy underway, but nothing on dust that I am aware of. I will check with the department and see how that kind of information might be compiled. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to pursue another question on the hotel tax. Mr. Speaker, I am not a Minister of Finance, but if I were, and if I was thinking about going down in the history books as instituting a whole new tax, I would ask some basic questions.

One is where I am going to collect it from? Who is going to pay? It is the comparison between gain and pain. What is the gain and what is the pain? Who is going to pay for it and what is it going to cost? The cost will have to be not only what is it going to cost me to collect it, but what is it going to cost the industry? These are the basic questions I would ask before I take money out of other people's pockets, or my own pockets, or pockets of the NGOs, the aboriginal governments, or millions of people who have conferences in the North.

Mr. Speaker, I have to ask the Minister if he would not agree that those should be the basic questions he should ask as the Minister of Finance?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Finance, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Certainly, whenever we institute a new tax or toll or whatever it may be, we have to ask the questions, what are the benefits and what are the costs of doing it? Ms. Lee is absolutely correct, that is critical.

In doing that, when we introduce a new idea that is going to come into effect next year, we have a number of months to answer those questions. I am working with estimates. I could tell you that every occupant in a hotel with four or more rooms in the Northwest Territories will pay five percent more on their hotel bill as the tax is presently proposed. That includes roughly 10,000 Japanese tourists, plus many other tourists. It includes people working for the federal government. It includes people working for mining and oil and gas companies. It means some government employees, not as many as some Members have thought, but some. There are government employees who will pay for it. There are aboriginal governments who are funded from various sources who will also pay. There is a whole host of people who will pay.

There is some pain, but the gain, we estimate roughly a million dollars of gain that is going to be re-invested back into tourism. I have made the commitment that if this does not work, we are ready to review it. There is a million dollars to go into tourism to get more people in here to pay who are not from the Northwest Territories.

This is not going to be a heavy tax mainly on Northerners. This is going to be largely on people who come into the North. I will tell you, a lot of them are not even going to notice it. It certainly is not going to drive them away. Research shows that five percent will make no difference at all to the level of business in the hotel industry. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister repeating the same party line that he has done in the last week. Mr. Speaker, I think the information the Minister provided in this House to both the Member for Thebacha and I shows he really has no facts to go on.

Mr. Speaker, would he not admit that it was very premature on his part to announce this tax, because he really has no facts to go on other than dreams about the Japanese tourist who is going to paint his pockets. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Finance, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I disagree. I am working on the best estimates we have right now. The 10,000 Japanese tourists, since the Member referred to them in reference to my earlier comment, are not dreams. They are a reality. We have them here, and I want to see 10,000 other tourists here in a few years so we have a much bigger base. Those are not dreams. Some of it is based on reality. Some of it is based on what I believe this tax can do and what it has done in other jurisdictions. We need to spend money in tourism. As I said before, I hope the Member will share my enthusiasm for getting some dollars in tourism. Thank you.

-- Applause

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In order to collect one million dollars from 10,000 people, I think he has to collect at least $100 a head out of these Japanese tourists, who I understand are not big spenders.

Mr. Speaker, one of the concerns I have from the answer he gave is that enforcement of this tax would be an absolute nightmare. The lodge, for example, has a million different variations of operation. Can I ask the Minister, on the facts he has or lack of facts he has, he has absolutely no idea how much it is going to cost to enforce this tax. Is that not true, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Finance, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our estimate, as I have said before, for administration of this tax is roughly $100,000. I do not have anything more accurate.

Mr. Speaker, I do not think our business people are a bunch of criminals out there. I do not feel I am going to have a huge problem with enforcement, any more than we do with tobacco tax, fuel tax, or the federal government has with GST and so on. Our businessmen are good, honest, hard-working people who, if there is a tax, they will pay it. We do not have to have a big enforcement section to do that. I respect those people. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Final supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I do not believe I am accusing anyone out there of being crooked. I am just accusing someone here of not having the full picture. Mr. Speaker, his answer indicates:

"However, on the lodges, many of these lodges would offer accommodation for part of the year only, and accommodation in some small lodges would be exempt from the proposed tax."

The best figure he has is some, Mr. Speaker. What is some? How do you enforce this? I am not talking about crooked people, I am talking...