Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to weigh in on this debate a little bit and make comments about tourism in general. I am in support of this bill, but I do want to just talk about what we heard and I want to speak about a region that I don't represent as a Member here, but we got to go to as part of the cost of living pre-budget tour. I was on the team that went to Wekweeti. Because of the time or the timing, a lot of community people were away but we did have a nice little meeting with the SAO and some of the community people. One of the topics that came out was the desire on the part of the community to do more on tourism activities. One gentlemen who was there is a licensed guide. I don't know if I would call him an elder. He may be too young to be an elder, but to me he seemed very wise anyway. He really wanted to be able to do guiding work and he said there is no opportunity to do that. I believe the SAO also or somebody informed us that there is no EDO or business development officer in that community.

I think there were comments made elsewhere, not today, on this topic, but in other places where we speak often about a lack of administrative or business infrastructures to sustain, promote, enhance arts and cultural industries and such. I think that is very much related to the tourism industry. I think what the Member for Thebacha spoke about yesterday about the importance of water and how we need to balance our environmental goals along with resource development goals, I think the same can be said about promoting and supporting renewable resources like the tourism industry. From what I see, I don't think we are doing as much as we can on that.

Now I don't know all the details as to why we are not able to do this, but I can think of two things. Not of why we aren't doing that, but just two observations that I want to throw in the mix. One is when you look at the aurora tourism industry in Yellowknife, it is something that we need to be proud of and we are proud of. The product there is really not only for the Japanese tourist to come all this way to look at the beauty and wonder of aurora, but I think there is a lot there and a huge part of that attraction is for people who live in a very densely polluted part of the world to come and instantly notice the noise level going down, the air feeling fresher, open skies and just general slow down of a busy life. If you come from some cross-section in Japan and come to Yellowknife, I think you could really notice that and they value that. They are willing to pay a lot of money and come a huge distance to experience that. While this industry has become successful due to a lot of effort on the part of private entrepreneurs, I think that sort of attraction and even more than that exists as a potential for small communities.

I know for a fact that the Japanese market or the German market would be very interested in going to communities like Wekweeti. Wekweeti has everything that Yellowknife has, and more probably. It is next to the most beautiful lake. The guide and the SAO spoke about some of the attractions that they wanted to show near there. Apparently the Franklin expedition went through there and there are landmarks to show that they went through there.