Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, committee would like to consider Committee Report 9-18(3), A Report on the Review of Bill 18, An Act to Amend the Cities, Towns and Villages Act; and Bill 18, An Act to Amend the Cities, Towns and Villages Act. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. We'll get right into it. Committee, we have first agreed to consider Committee Report 9-18(3), keeping in mind that we will then consider Bill 18. I understand that there are no opening comments from the chair of the committee, so I will open the floor to general comments on the report, itself, keeping in mind that the actual bill will be debated right after this.

So do I have general comments on the Report on the Review of Bill 18 from committee? Seeing none. Does committee agree that this concludes our consideration of Committee Report 9-18(3), Report on the Review to Bill 18, An Act to Amend the Cities, Towns and Villages Act?

Thank you, committee. Let's move right into the bill which we have agreed to consider. I will go to the Minister responsible for the bill to introduce it. Minister Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I'm here to introduce Bill 18, An Act to Amend the Cities, Towns and Villages Act. I would like to thank the Standing Committee on Government Operations for their review of this bill. In addition to the two suites of amendments I will present, this bill makes three housekeeping amendments that have been suggested by the Legislative Division of the Department of Justice.

Mr. Chair, tourist accommodation taxes exist in some form in all provinces in Canada, whether in the form of a tax on hotel rooms collected by the province or municipality, or a destination marketing fee charged by hotel and accommodation associations. After consideration of each of these options, and in consultation with community governments and stakeholders, the Department of Community and Municipal Affairs proposed amendments to the Cities, Towns and Villages Act to give communities the authority to choose to impose a tourist accommodation tax.

The second suite of amendments included in this bill fulfills a mandate commitment of the 18^th Legislative Assembly. The proposed amendments will enable the municipal corporation to use local improvement charges to assist residents in making retrofits or implementing renewable energy technologies to private homes.

The types of projects that could be supported through these could include the installation of energy efficient furnaces or pellet boilers or the installation of solar panels. These long-awaited amendments respond to direct requests from community governments, meet MACA's stated goal of supporting governments in carrying out municipal responsibilities, and fulfill a mandate commitment for this Assembly.

In proposing these amendments, MACA has consulted with community governments and other stakeholders and has worked closely with the Departments of Finance and Industry, Tourism and Investment.

Although not all tax-based communities intend to pursue these opportunities immediately, all agreed that in supporting the option being available to their community government should they choose to use it. Should these amendments gain the approval of the Legislative Assembly, they will come into force upon assent.

This concludes my opening remarks, and I would be pleased to answer any questions that Members may have regarding Bill 18. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. I will now turn to the Chair of the Standing Committee on Government Operations which considered the bill for opening comments. Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Bill 18 received second reading in the Legislative Assembly on May 29, 2018 and was referred to the Standing Committee on Government Operations for a review. To commence consultation on Bill 18, the standing committee invited input on the bill from 99 hotel and bed and breakfast operators offering tourist accommodations in the six tax-based municipalities. This consultation list was kindly provided by the Department of Community and Municipal Affairs, who used to same list when consulting on the development of the bill. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank the honourable Minister for his willingness to collaborate on this work.

The committee held a public hearing on Bill 18 in Yellowknife on September 19 of this year, where we received presentations from the City of Yellowknife, the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce, and the Explorer Hotel. The committee also met with the mayor of Inuvik and the representatives of the town council in Inuvik on October 2^nd. Finally, the committee received written submissions from those who presented at the Yellowknife meeting, as well as the Town of Fort Smith, the Yellowknife Days Inn and Suites, and Embleton House Bed and Breakfast.

The committee thanks everyone who provided input on Bill 18.

Individual Members, in addition to these comments, earlier today, we read our complete report into the record, and I encourage anyone who'd like to be informed of the committee's work on this bill to read that report, as it is quite substantive and clearly outlines the work we did in reviewing the bill.

That concludes my opening comments, Mr. Chair. Individual Members may have additional questions, concerns, or comments as we proceed with consideration of this bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Would the Minister like to bring witnesses into the Chamber?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I do.

Thank you, Minister. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber. Minister, please introduce your witnesses for the record.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my far right is my deputy minister of MACA, Ms. Eleanor Young; sitting on my right is Mr. Ian Rennie, legislative counsel, Department of Justice; and on my immediate left is Ms. Grace Lau-a, director of Community Operations from Municipal and Community Affairs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Welcome to the witnesses. I will now open the floor to general comments on this bill before we get into a clause-by-clause. General comments from committee. Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Committee wrestled with this bill, and the biggest issue, as we mentioned in the report, was the exemptions. So I'm wondering if the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs has done a calculation on the prospective revenues that will be generated by this tax, specifically in the City of Yellowknife, which is the only municipality planning on bringing it in; if they have done just a rough estimate of what the total tax revenue will be? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and as stated before, we don't have that current data. If you break it down by the exceptions such as medical travel, GNWT exempt, we don't have that type of information right now. I know that, should this bill get assent, that's the type of data we will be sure to be collecting as we move forward with this bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Testart.

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.

Thank you. Minister.

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.

Thank you. Mr. Testart.

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.

Thank you. Minister.

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.

Thank you. Mr. Testart.

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.

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.

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

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 60^th 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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Ms. Lau-a.

Ms. Lau-a.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Yes, I guess committee heard other information from, and I believe my colleague from Kam Lake, the chair of the committee, talked about how one hotel chain put together information based on industry-wide standards. It had indicated that there would be about a little more than $1.1 million with the existing exclusions. By my rough calculations, GNWT excluding itself, that would immediately reduce the revenue stream by about 25 percent. That's okay.

You know, my position, I think, is that there should be no exclusions. That's familiar treatment, that everybody pays the airport improvement fee on their tickets. Some folks felt that that should be transitioned in over a period of time, but everybody pays that. There's no exclusion for government employees or government travel from airport improvement fees. My preference would have been to have no exclusions whatsoever, but I can live with the exclusions that are in there. I wouldn't want them reduced any further, because I think then it will start to limit the revenues that are made available to our tax-based municipalities, should they wish to pursue this.

I want to thank the department for the information they have provided here today. Some of that's new to me. I do support the bill. I commend again the committee and the City of Yellowknife and the other individuals who did present on this legislation. I look forward to its passage. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly. Minister Moses, did you want to comment?

No, I'll take it as commented, I think, for the good comments from the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. Simpson.

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.

Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Minister Moses, do you want to provide a comment to that?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you go through the provisions, there are provisions in here that allow for further exemptions to be prescribed through regulations, and then as the bylaws have been under the bylaw, it also gives the council discretion to provide for exemptions from the tax, in addition to those required through the regulations.

In terms of looking at all GNWT residents, as the Member knows, we did look into that. We got legal advice. It did create a possibility for a challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That was a big concern. I did have a chat with the Member about that on a couple of occasions, but I think what we have the in the bill right here can adjust some of the issues. We will work with the city in terms of the concerns that are raised here in the House and any other concerns that we do hear as we roll out this legislation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Moses. Mr. Simpson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of a charter challenge, I have heard different views. I have my own views on this. I think the government is being overly cautious, overly risk-adverse, as it usually is. Anyone can bring a Charter challenge for anything. It doesn't mean it's going anywhere, so I think the government is taking that concern a little too seriously.

The other issue that I was trying to remember was destination marketing. Right now, we give NWT Tourism, I think, around $4 million a year to go out and market the NWT. Well, that is exactly what the City of Yellowknife said that they want to use this money for. If the City of Yellowknife now raises another million dollars a year -- I am making numbers up, but if they raise a million dollars a year, and they put that towards destination marketing, are they then getting the benefit of this tax, coming out of the pockets of residents to a great extent, as well as the benefit of the NWT Tourism money that is appropriated through this legislature?

I would like the Department of ITI, which appropriates NWT Tourism with that money, to work with NWT Tourism if this, in fact, passes and perhaps spread the money out a little more evenly so that this tax doesn't just benefit Yellowknife. Perhaps that $4 million, if it is a million raised here, that million can be displaced from NWT Tourism elsewhere in the territory to help the tourist markets in the rest of our regions. Nothing further. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Minister Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will talk to my Cabinet colleague from ITI with the suggestion that was raised by the Member, and as I said, the revenues that do come out of this, it is going to be our first year, so we are going to see what those final numbers are and see what the City of Yellowknife gets.

Then we also have the other opportunity for the energy retrofits that the city can use. All of this money might not go into tourism. Some of it might go into energy retrofits with some private homes, possibly.

Thank you, Minister Moses.

Sorry, Mr. Chair, I'm making a correction here. My mistake, sorry. I stand corrected.

Thank you for that correction, Minister. Next, I have Ms. Green.

Thank you. Mr. Chair, one of the challenges of this job, as a Yellowknife MLA, is that Yellowknife is usually considered in this legislature as just one of 33 communities, and of course, it is, but on the other hand, half of the population lives here, and it is the major economic driver of the entire territory.

Along comes the City of Yellowknife, and they want some independence to raise money, to market tourism, to grow that sector of our economy, and they do not get a lot of love from this government. Independence is to be frowned on. Being a chattel is the way of the future. They are completely hobbled by this ridiculous list of exemptions.

This list is not like the Alberta list. The Alberta list takes into account things like rental accommodation, nursing homes, hospitals, staff housing, and other things which are obviously not rented to tourists, but it doesn't try to exempt every person or activity in the province of Alberta. My first question for the Minister is: how was this list of exemptions created? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Green. Ms. Young.

Thank you. Ms. Green.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can the Minister tell us which of the list that the deputy just provided recommended that GNWT be exempt? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As my deputy minister had mentioned, there was a very long consultation process that we had with a lot of stakeholders.

In terms of the GNWT exempt, that came from the GNWT. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Ms. Green.

Mr. Chair, I am really hoping third time lucky with this question. Yes, they did consultation. Who among those consulted said, "You should exempt the GNWT," in any form or fashion? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Green. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. None of the stakeholders said it. It came from us, the GNWT. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.

I think the term for that is "self-interest."

The next thing I want to ask about is why the Government of Canada wasn't exempted. In Alberta, the Government of Canada is exempted from hotel levies. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Green. I have stopped the clock while the Minister and his team gather the information. We might have an answer. Ms. Young.

Thank you for that. Ms. Green.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the answer to that. It is interesting that this government took that approach, and the Alberta government decided that Canada needed to be specifically excluded from paying the tax. From the small amount of information that we have received, what the GNWT wants to do is save $250,000 a year by not paying the hotel tax in Yellowknife. Is that a correct summary? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Even with the preliminary numbers that we do have, the initial work that was done, we don't have a concrete set of numbers right now. However, that is funding that can go into other areas as we do program services within the government.

In short, we just wanted to look at ways that, as the GNWT, there would be some savings.

Thank you, Minister. Ms. Green.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I don't find saving $250,000 on a $1.8 billion budget a very compelling reason to exempt the GNWT from paying this hotel tax, whereas it could provide a valuable economic driver for the City of Yellowknife to bring more tourists here, and as you, yourself, have pointed out, when Yellowknife is thriving, it tends to float more boats than just the City of Yellowknife. My next question is about the levy at the airport. I don't recall that there was any discussion about having exemptions there. So why are there no exemptions at the airport, but there is this list of exemptions for the hotel tax? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Green. That's beyond the scope of this review. Ms. Green.

Okay. Those are all my questions on this section. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Green. Next, I have Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess my first question is: when we talk about a charter challenge, has the department obtained a legal opinion in writing that this going to happen? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as I mentioned to committee, we did get a legal opinion, and with that legal opinion it says that it does create the possibility for a challenge. As we've heard from Members, the interpretation that other Members have, it differs from person to person or even possibly lawyer to lawyer. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Perhaps for some more detail we could go to our law clerk. Madam Clerk.

Thank you very much for that information. Mr. Thompson.

I thank our law clerk for that information. I greatly appreciate that. One of my big concerns, though, is that this is going to be a tax on residents of the Northwest Territories. It's another tax on the residents of the Northwest Territories. It's no different than the airport improvement fee tax; people have to pay that. The smaller communities, it doesn't sound like a lot of money, but you look at it, you stay here for five days, that's $15; you fly in here, that could be X amount of dollars. So all of a sudden, you're looking at an additional $50, $60, $80, added to their cost of living. That is a challenge.

The bigger challenge, though, I guess, is sports teams. I've heard this from the Minister and from people saying that you can get a good deal at the hotels. Well, depending on the time of year, hotels could be booked up, and hotels are going to be doing what they need to do, and sometimes during other events, they don't have the big tourism push, so they're able to give the deal, but sometimes they can't. That's a huge impact on the smaller communities. I know so much that every dollar we fundraise, it's fundraised to go to an event per year; sometimes if we're lucky we can do two. So has the Minister looked at that as part of the exemption? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you've heard here already, when we did do the consulting of the stakeholders, the department did attempt to strike a balance with the various exemptions scenarios that were offered. This is what we came up with, what's in the bill here. There are a couple provisions in here that also allow for further exemptions to be prescribed under regulation, but also under the bylaw exemption from the tax, the council is given discretion to provide for exemption from the tax in addition to those required under subsection 5. When we go to clause-by-clause review, you will see it in there. So there are some areas in there that allow for it, and it would be up to the municipality. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate that information from the Minister. I guess my biggest challenge is that we're exempting the GNWT. We don't exempt them on the airport improvement fee. We don't do that, but now the taxpayers, the people of the Northwest Territories, now they have to pay this, and we're sitting here talking about making cost of living not have an impact on people, have the cost of living be better, and now we're sitting here doing that. So to me, what's the difference between the residents of the Northwest Territories and government of NWT? What is the difference? Why can the government get this exemption and the residents cannot? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Minister.

Thank you. I appreciate the comparison. I know the airport improvement tax is GNWT revenue. In terms of this tax, it would be revenue to the municipalities, and the government decided early on that it would not choose in this specific bill to tax itself when it's not collecting revenue to offset those costs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I'm just disappointed. It's either or all. If you're going to exempt the GNWT, then we could be exempting all residents of the Northwest Territories. It's a tourism tax; that's what I am reading. It says tourism accommodation tax; that's what it is. So you mean that, for our sporting teams, they're now considered tourists coming into the capital to participate? Can the Minister please elaborate on that? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned, we did do the consulting and met with all our stakeholders, and we did try to strike a balance with the various exemption scenarios. This what we came up with. This is a tourism tax that would be for Yellowknife municipalities, for the City of Yellowknife and not for the GNWT. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Green talked about consulting and you went out and talked to the groups and came up with this recommendation, but it was the GNWT that made that recommendation; it wasn't the group of people you were talking to. So why did the GNWT make that recommendation? They didn't hear it from any of the people out there. They heard it from the Government of the Northwest Territories. So can you please explain why the Government of the Northwest Territories was able be part of this without telling people they were going to be consulted? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I did mention just early on in the questioning here from the Member that GNWT decided early on that it will not choose to tax itself when it's not collecting revenue to offset those costs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Less than a minute. Mr. Thompson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I apologize. I took the whole 10 minutes. I was hoping not to.

The GNWT decided that they are not going to tax themselves, but we are going to tax the residents of the Northwest Territories with this fee. Is that what you are telling me? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The bill allows for a municipality to choose to implement this tax. GNWT is not putting the tax on people. It is up to the municipality. As you have heard before, we have five other tax-based communities that decided not to do this, and we have one municipality that has decided to put this through, should this bill get assent. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Thompson, your time has expired. I have no one further on my list, so we will move to a clause-by-clause review of the bill.

Committee, we will defer the bill number and title until after consideration of the clauses. Please turn to page 1 of the bill. I will call out the clauses. After I call out the clause, if committee agrees, please respond accordingly. Are we ready?

Agreed.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Clause 1.

Thank you. Clause 2. Mr. Thompson.