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.