This is page numbers 4571 - 4620 of the Hansard for the 18th Assembly, 3rd Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was yellowknife.

Topics

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair R.J. Simpson

Thank you. Mr. Testart.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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Kieron Testart

Kieron Testart Kam Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Some of the evidence committee collected in its hearings included a finance estimate produced by the Days Inn and Suites based on industry information, and their estimate was around $1.1 million of revenue. Further, the list of exemptions currently contained in this bill would consume around 30 to 40 percent of total revenues. Does the Minister agree with that estimation? Thank you.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair R.J. Simpson

Thank you. Minister.

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Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of the collecting of that type of data, there is not a consistent method at this time to see what kind of data is being collected, and I do understand that committee did get some information from one of our local hotels, but that's something that we will be taking a look at and monitoring should this bill come to assent. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair R.J. Simpson

Thank you. Mr. Testart.

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Kieron Testart

Kieron Testart Kam Lake

Again, this was a difficult matter for committee because we wanted to ensure that the administrative burden of these exemptions was not overly, we wanted to make sure there wasn't additional red tape created with the creation of these bylaws for the hotel industry, or for the City of Yellowknife or any municipality that wants to implement these taxes. Further, we wanted to ensure that the tax revenue wasn't unduly impacted by revenues.

Can the Minister commit to doing that analysis of tax revenues and reporting back to a committee as soon as those numbers are available so we can see how this tax is performing in terms of its intended goals to support tourism services in municipalities in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair R.J. Simpson

Thank you. Minister.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and definitely, we will be reporting back to committee on how this is unfolding. In terms of working with the municipality, we will be making sure that we have good communication with the City of Yellowknife, which is the only municipality right now that has shown any type of interest, and we will work with them to ensure that this rolls out in the smoothest manner possible. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair R.J. Simpson

Thank you. Mr. Testart.

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Kieron Testart

Kieron Testart Kam Lake

Further to that, in the future, when developing tax proposals such as these, can the Minister commit to providing more financial details to allow committee to properly assess things like this when it's made available? Because it would greatly improve our ability to assess the viability of these potential tax initiatives. Thank you.

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Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If that information is available, then, for sure, we will let committee be apprised of that information and data should it be available.

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The Chair

The Chair R.J. Simpson

Thank you. Nothing further. Next, I have Mr. McNeely.

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Daniel McNeely

Daniel McNeely Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, too, had some concerns on the exemption portion of this bill, but overall analyzing the benefits created from this bill as we all said is really beneficial to the City of Yellowknife. In the context of defining "benefits" when statements were saying that if the levy is going to be directed to the incoming tourism community.

When you look back at the Department of ITI survey showing the traffic in the neighbourhood of annual tourists coming into the territories, right from the Arctic Ocean to the 60th parallel at 108,000 visitors, being conservative and saying, even if half of that was directed to the traffic going into the city for Aurora viewing, et cetera, and calculating a formula of assumptions on an average per charge for the hotel room, and assuming that you're going to charge a levy of 3 percent, one could figure out the sales generated by this levy. I've got no concerns with that. I think it's not an innovative idea, it's done elsewhere in other jurisdictions, but it's going to create benefits that would be directed to this city.

Also on top of that, I, from a small community, look at the benefits and I outweigh the benefits and say, okay, why should we place additional levy charges to our own people who view Yellowknife as a destination to go for additional meetings? The local governments come here and make it worthwhile to meet with this government, as well as doing their own regular business in the city of Yellowknife. It might be a small amount at the end of the day on a charge-per-night basis, but it's the principle of burdening the small communities with a 3 percent charge if it is, in fact, 3 percent. That might come out to $6 per night.

When I look at that, I say to myself, let's analyze the options so we can provide options to our leadership in the communities, or even if they, in fact, want to say, well, that's just the extra costs of doing business in Yellowknife, and we're willing to accept that. That's their prerogative. For me, it's the principle of charging our own people to benefit our own people in the Northwest Territories. There's a difference between our own people in the Northwest Territories when you look at the jurisdictions of the city, the regions, and the small communities.

I thought about it for a while, talked to my colleagues, and got some clarity and some options to present to the leadership of any region outside of Yellowknife that's going to be charged this levy outside of the exemption lists. More particularly, our regional land claim governments and local governments would be charged this levy. There is other options available to negotiate something between the city and the regions or the community organizations. I just mention that for the record. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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The Chair

The Chair R.J. Simpson

Thank you, Mr. McNeely. Next, I have Mr. O'Reilly.

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Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I just have a few thank yous at the beginning. I want to thank the Standing Committee on Government Operations on the thorough review they did on the bill. I sat in on some of the work and appreciated that opportunity.

The City of Yellowknife has done a lot of work on these two issues of the accommodation tax and local improvement charges for energy retrofits. These were live issues when I served on city council from 1997 to 2006. These have been a very, very long time coming.

This will provide some funding for tourism, promotion, and investment, and I just wish that our Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment would step up and increase the amount that they would put into tourism in Yellowknife. We still don't have a Yellowknife visitors' centre, an adequate one. We need a territorial one, perhaps. We need more investment from our friends at ITI, as well.

The biggest issue with the bill as it has come forward is this issue of exclusions, and we want to minimize the confusion for hoteliers. I want to ask a couple of questions of the department if I can: how widespread is it that provincial governments exempt themselves from paying a hotel tax in jurisdictions in southern Canada? How common is that practice? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

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The Chair

The Chair Daniel McNeely

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister Moses.

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Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

From my understanding, there is no other jurisdiction or no other governments that exempt themselves. Thank you.

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The Chair

The Chair Daniel McNeely

Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. O'Reilly.

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Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that. Why did the department include GNWT, then, in the exclusions here? Did they actually calculate how much this tourism accommodation tax would cost the government? Let's start with: why did the government exempt themselves from this tax in the bill that has come forward? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

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The Chair

The Chair Daniel McNeely

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Ms. Lau-a.

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Lau-A

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The GNWT does have some initial information on how much we spend in terms of government travel and in terms of medical expenses. Part of the reason why we don't have any analysis to table is that every hotelier in the GNWT, we all collect our data as does Industry and Tourism in different ways. It's not comparable in many instances.

While we have done some initial impact on excluding the GNWT, it's not a number that we want to report or rely on. We know that the City of Yellowknife, who has done their research, feel that, even with the exclusion, they should still have some ability to collect enough levies to promote tourism.

Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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The Chair

The Chair Daniel McNeely

Thank you, Ms. Lau-a. Mr. O'Reilly.

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Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Okay, that sounds like that there were some sort of, at least preliminary calculations done. Does the department have any kind of analysis that, even a rough estimate, of what the cost to GNWT would be without this exclusion? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

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Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters

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The Chair

The Chair Daniel McNeely

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister Moses.

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Alfred Moses

Alfred Moses Inuvik Boot Lake

Ms. Lau-a.