Thank you, Mr. Chair. As we all know, the primary issue in this bill is giving municipalities the authority to implement a hotel levy. From our discussions, it sounds like Yellowknife is the only one considering this. Every other municipality seems to think that administering this fee would cost more than it would ever bring in. I mean, in Hay River, I think we are lucky if we have 50 percent occupancy. It's much higher in Yellowknife. I think the territorial average is 70 percent, but I think Yellowknife's occupancy is probably being brought down by the rest of the territory. Because if anyone comes to Yellowknife at this time of the year, you see Aurora viewers everywhere. If I wake up in the middle of the night and I look at my window at two in the morning, there are four buses lined up in front of the Quality Inn of tourists coming to this town.

You know, Yellowknife has indicated that they would like this, and no one else has indicated that they have any interest in this. For the foreseeable future, that's essentially what seems to be the plan.

This bill is purely for the benefit of Yellowknife. I have no problem with tourists coming to Yellowknife. You know, a rising tide lifts all ships, and I think that anything that is good for the Yellowknife is also good for the territory in many respects, not all respects.

My issue is that a lot of people in the territory come to Yellowknife because this is where services are centralized. I have no issue with charging this fee to tourists, but when people have to come here because this is where sporting events are held and you have these youth hockey teams stay, doing bottle drives and raising money so they can come to Yellowknife and play hockey, now we are going to hit them with a hotel tax on top of that, they are going to need to raise more money.

Businesses have to come here often because this is where the government is, or this is where a lot of businesses are centered. We are taking it out again on small business. When I'm speaking of small business, if you look at this list of exemptions, I mean, it's pretty complicated. There's nothing in this legislation that says the hotel can pass off the administration of this to the municipality. If the City of Yellowknife wants to implement this and say, "Okay, hoteliers, you have to determine who is eligible for this and who is not," it's going to be an administrative nightmare for the hotels. It's going to cost them money, you know. We have enough red tape and enough small business issues in this territory that we don't need to be adding one more.

What I would like to see is that this particular provision does not apply to any NWT residents. It will make it easier for everyone involved, you know. Admittedly, it will decrease the tax revenue, but perhaps they will save it on the back end when it comes to administration. We don't know, because no one has provided this committee with any numbers, despite us asking.

I had another point here. I was just pausing to bring it back up. Well, I think I said most of it. I'll let it slide, and maybe I'll get back to it in the clause-by-clause review. Thank you, Mr. Chair.