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.