Finance Committee on April 18th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 138 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, March 18, 2024, and the motion adopted on Monday, December 11, 2024, the committee is meeting to discuss Bill C-59, an act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 21, 2023 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 28, 2023.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to Standing Order 15.1. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the members and the witnesses.

Although this room is equipped with a powerful audio system, feedback events can occur. These can be extremely harmful to interpreters and can cause serious injuries. The most common cause of sound feedback is an earpiece worn too close to a microphone. We therefore ask all participants to exercise a high degree of caution when handling the earpieces, especially when their microphone or their neighbour's microphone is turned on, in order to prevent incidents and to safeguard the hearing health of our interpreters.

I invite participants to ensure that they speak into the microphone into which their headset is plugged and to avoid manipulating the earbuds by placing them on the table away from the microphone when they are not in use.

I remind everyone that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

For members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. For members on Zoom, please use the raise-hand function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as well as we can. We appreciate your patience and understanding in this regard.

With us today as individuals are witnesses David Brown, realtor; and Jennifer Quaid, associate professor and vice-dean of research, civil law section, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa. She will be joining us shortly. From the Canadian Dental Association, we have Aaron Burry, chief executive officer. From the Union des consommateurs, we have Maxime Dorais, co-director general, as well as Olivier Surprenant, analyst, public policy and health.

Welcome, everyone.

David Brown is here. We'll start with him for five minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[David Brown, Realtor, As an Individual]

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Dave Brown. I'm a long-time realtor in Whistler, British Columbia. I'm here today to discuss the underused housing tax on behalf of both the Whistler Real Estate Association, which is made up of about 150 realtors, and Tourism Whistler, a non-profit tourism organization representing 8,000 members who have tourist-zoned property on resort lands in Whistler.

Tourism Whistler's CEO Barrett Fisher is out of the country, so she is unable to testify today.

Whistler is requesting that all tourist-zoned accommodation with restricted-use covenants on title be exempt from the UHT. Within the provincially legislated Resort Municipality of Whistler Act, incorporated in 1975, all land located at the base of Whistler's two mountains and three golf courses were designated resort lands for the purpose of generating a vibrant tourist economy for the community.

It has been very successful. Whistler has grown into a global tourist destination, generating more than $2 billion in annual visitor spending and approximately $700 million in tax revenues while supporting more than 3,000 businesses and 15,000 jobs. As stipulated within the official community plan, accommodation properties located on resort lands have covenants on title—phase 1 or phase 2—confirming the required tourist usage. As well, property owners on resort lands must pay a mandatory annual tourism assessment fee to support Whistler's tourism economy, including destination development, marketing and sales initiatives.

From Whistler's earliest days, the resort has encouraged both domestic and international investment to build hotels, condominiums, townhouses and houses for tourist rentals, providing a breadth of accommodation choices for a diversity of visitors who come to enjoy Whistler's outdoor recreation, cultural offerings and commercial amenities. Approximately 80% of Whistler's tourist accommodation is owned by individual investors who put their hotel, condominium or housing units into a tourist rental pool to support Whistler's visitor economy. The new federal UHT penalizes those investors who have supported Whistler's tourism economy and contributed to its long-term success.

International owners typically use their property one to two weeks a year, then put it into a rental pool for the remainder of the year so the accommodation is not sitting empty but rather being maximized for its intended tourist rental usage. Requiring international owners to utilize their properties for a minimum of 28 personal days would therefore remove this accommodation from the tourism rental pool. This is a major concern for hoteliers, property managers and commercial businesses, since owner accommodation usage does not support ground transportation, resort activities, attractions, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, retail shops, spas and conference facilities to the same level that nightly rental visitors do.

Worse, many international accommodation owners are refusing to pay the UHT and are putting their properties up for sale, thereby taking their units out of the rental pool altogether. These properties would likely be sold to B.C. residents who would use them as second homes.

It's important to note that any federal government revenue gained from the UHT would be neutralized by the corresponding loss in GST that would have been collected from tourist visits. That's the GST not only on accommodation rentals but also on the wide variety of tourism businesses and services that tourists invest in while vacationing in Whistler.

The Canada Revenue Agency has deemed any stratified hotel or condominium property with a kitchen to be suitable for residential use, even if this unit is subject to zoning and covenant restrictions that govern the allowable usage. However, this does not make sense, as most hotel properties...nor their kitchen facilities are appropriate to support year-round residential usage, as the covenant restriction on hotels and condominiums limits personal usage of these units to 28 days in the winter, November through April, and 28 days in summer, May through October, in order to support intended tourist rental usage.

We appreciate the rationale for taxing foreign-owned residential housing that is being underutilized and unavailable as local housing stock. However, this is not the case within the Whistler resort's land-zoned districts, where purpose-built tourist accommodation is being fully utilized for its intended purpose of nightly vacation rentals. Further to this, Whistler has made a strong commitment to funding and building affordable employee housing within the residential neighbourhoods.

As a resort municipality, Whistler is exempt from the Province of British Columbia's speculation and vacancy tax, introduced in 2018, and it is exempt from the Government of Canada's Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act, which took effect on January 1, 2023.

I'll note that resort municipalities are recognized as purpose-built tourist destinations that generate international export revenues.

Whistler, therefore, respectfully requests that the federal government create an exemption within the underused housing tax legislation for tourist accommodation in the resort municipalities prior to the tax deadline of April 30, 2024, or as soon as possible.

Without such an exemption, the economic viability of Whistler's businesses will likely decline, along with the corresponding federal, provincial and municipal tax revenues, undermining the buoyancy of Whistler's vibrant tourist accommodation.

I have a couple of points to talk about—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

You'll have to wrap up. We're well over time.

[David Brown]

Okay. I have provided information that people can have a look at.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you for that. You'll have another opportunity during members' question time.

We are going to hear now from the Canadian Dental Association.

[Dr. Aaron Burry, Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Dental Association]

Thank you, Chair and committee.

I'm delighted to be here today.

I'm the CEO of the dental association, but I've also been a practising dentist for over 37 years, and I devoted the majority of my career to vulnerable populations and treating vulnerable patients.

CDA is the national voice of the dental profession, promoting dental education, research standards and the needs of the Canadian dental care system. CDA is working collaboratively with the provincial and territorial dental associations, which represent over 25,000 practising dentists across the country, to ensure that the Canadian dental care plan, CDCP, meets the needs of Canadians.

CDA has long advocated that oral health is an essential part of general health and should be supported by investments to improve health care in Canada. The CDCP represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make a significant improvement to oral health for millions of Canadians, and we believe we have to get this right from the start.

CDA has focused on being a constructive partner in the CDCP's development from the beginning. In February 2023, we published a policy paper, entitled “Bridging the Financial Gap in Dental Care”, which proposed a framework. Primarily, we recommended that the CDCP should work like other dental care plans. We stress that patients should be allowed to choose their own dentist, and that existing dental care plans be safeguarded.

The federal government must ensure that the cost of eligible treatment is fully covered. Many seniors will soon learn that this program may only cover a portion of the care they need. Vulnerable seniors have unique oral health needs that may not be covered under this program, and certainly not at launch.

Dentists are worried about the bureaucratic demands this program will place on their offices in terms of HR and other resources, which are already stretched due to staffing shortages. Dentists need the program to be administratively simple. That is critical to ensure access to care for the millions of Canadians who will be eligible over the coming months.

Over the past several months, CDA and provincial and territorial dental associations have expressed concerns about the current program design to the federal government. A recently conducted survey of 4,000 dentists found that 61% of dentists said they would not participate in the program. Without the support of oral health providers, this program will not succeed, and the millions of patients signing up for the program will not be able to find a dentist.

Today, I'd like to share with the committee three areas of concern.

First, the CDCP does not provide free dental care, but many Canadians are under the impression that it does. In fact, the program only covers a portion of the usual and customary fees, despite our call that the government respect established provincial and territorial fee guides. This is already causing confusion, with the burden of explaining misunderstandings falling on dental administrative staff.

Second, formal registration under the CDCP, or a claim-by-claim pathway, is different from normal dental plans that other Canadians have. The issue is that they include terms and conditions that are generally not found in other normal plans. What we're hearing from dentists is that the extensive terms and conditions may be too much for their clinics to take on.

Third, federal government approvals should not be part of providing medically necessary care. The initial service schedule set to be launched in May gives people some level of services for the care they need, but not all. To get the care they need, CDCP patients may need to go through pre-authorization, but this will only be available after this November. The CDCP is not consistent with other dental care plans. It's a complex government program, and it involves more complex authorization processes that we believe will disrupt patient care.

Our goal from the beginning has been to make sure the CDCP succeeds. That is why we made recommendations on how the program needed to be designed to work for vulnerable populations. That's our focus. We want to work to reduce the barriers to care, not to see new ones implemented.

On a final point, as of today, there are a lot of unknowns about this program. For example, dentists don't know how coordination of benefits with provincial programs is going to work. We also don't know exactly what level of services will be pre-authorized to meet patient needs.

I want to finish by thanking the committee for having us here today, and for listening to these concerns. We believe in the intent behind this program, and want to work with the government to get it right for patients. All Canadians deserve the best oral health care possible. The program needs to be designed so that it works for patients, and the dentists and staff who care for them.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Dr. Burry.

Now we'll go to the Union des consommateurs. I understand that Maxime Dorais will be delivering the remarks.

[Maxime Dorais, Co-Director general, Union des consommateurs]

Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, good morning.

My name is Maxime Dorais, and I'm co-CEO of Union des consommateurs.

I would first like to thank Mr. Gabriel Ste‑Marie for inviting us to appear before the committee to present our analysis of Bill C‑59.

First, let me introduce you to our organization. Union des consommateurs represents 14 consumer rights associations. Our mission is to promote and defend consumer rights, with a particular focus on low-income households.

In addition to consumer law, Union des consommateurs' team of risk analysts also takes a keen interest in social policies. On top of research and public awareness work, the union undertakes collective actions to support consumers and advance consumer law.

As part of the bill currently under study, we were primarily interested in measures affecting competition and affordability in grocery stores.

I'll now hand over to my colleague Olivier Surprenant, public policy analyst.

[Olivier Surprenant, Public Policy and Health Analyst, Union des consommateurs]

Good morning, members of the committee.

First of all, we welcome the changes to competition law. Increasing competition can be a way of reducing the price of goods and services. Both the Competition Bureau and the Competition Tribunal must therefore have the right tools giving them greater power so that, ultimately, they can fulfill their mandate properly.

We particularly welcome the expansion of remedies available to private parties. In our view, this amendment is worthwhile in terms of defending consumer rights, particularly given the addition of remedies for deceptive commercial practices.

We also welcome the intention to frame the right to repair and the government's intention to consult on this issue, as confirmed in Tuesday's budget.

In short, we believe that the federal government should draw inspiration in particular from the French legislation surrounding repairability and durability ratings.

When it comes to regulating grocers and suppliers, we believe that industry self-regulation through the Canada Code will not achieve the desired objectives. It is essential to adopt a mandatory code of conduct between grocers and suppliers, to provide it with sanctions, to have its application supervised by an independent authority, in this case the Competition Bureau, and above all to ensure that consumer groups are consulted as part of its development.

In addition to the competition measures set out in Bill C‑59, we believe that other measures would help reduce the effect of the rising cost of living, particularly when it comes to food.

That is why we are proposing, for one, to abolish the Goods and Services Tax, or GST, pertaining to essential goods and products, including all food products.

We are also proposing that the government tackle the problem of shrinkflation by imposing mandatory display of quantity changes to products for a period of six months, following the example of Brazilian legislation.

In summary, we believe that Bill C‑59 provides some very promising measures to tackle the rising cost of living. We believe, however, that the bill could go even further, including by making a code of conduct for grocers mandatory and by abolishing the GST on food products.

Thank you very much for your attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Dorais and Mr. Surprenant.

Now we'll go to Jennifer Quaid, please, for five minutes.

[Dr. Jennifer Quaid, Associate Professor and Vice-Dean Research, Civil Law Section, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair, Deputy Chairs, members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, good morning.

For those who don't know me, I'm an associate professor and vice-dean of research at the University of Ottawa's Civil Law Section. My areas of expertise are corporate criminal law, general criminal law, business law, corporate regulation and competition law.

I am very pleased to appear before you to share my thoughts on section 6 of Bill C‑59, namely competition-related measures.

Let me add that, although I have prepared this statement primarily in English, I will, of course, be happy to answer your questions in the official language of your choice.

This is the first time that I am appearing before FINA—I'm glad to be here—but it is not the first time that I have appeared before parliamentary committees over the past couple of years, as the government has undertaken a major reform of the Competition Act, the first since 2009. As you know, the reform has been split into three parts: Bill C-19, enacted in June 2022, then Bill C-56, enacted in December 2023, and now Bill C-59 before you.

In the interests of time and given the scope of the proposed reform to the Competition Act, I will make four general points rather than going into detail about the extensive changes proposed, but I am at your disposal to answer questions on any aspects of the reform, and I may very well submit a brief if I have time.

Let me start by saying that the reform has made a lot of changes to the Competition Act, but not enough. Given the amount of political and public attention being directed at the state of competition—or the lack thereof—expectations for positive change flowing from this reform are very high, but are they warranted? To me, this is the central question that cuts across all aspects of the reform. Will we have better and more effective enforcement against anti-competitive practices and will we also at the same time promote better market and business conditions to promote a dynamic and innovative economy?

In my opinion, whether these expectations can be met depends on whether we are prepared to do what is necessary to operationalize the reform in a way that respects the spirit of what is driving the changes. It is also essential that we adopt a mindset of competition law and policy as a dynamic process that adapts to an ever-evolving economy while remaining true to the underlying values that Canadians share.

While there have been many changes to the act, fundamentally, it's still a cumbersome, overly detailed legislative text. This in the past has led to the development of complex analytical frameworks requiring specialized expert evidence. Obtaining remedies to anti-competitive behaviour is difficult, expensive and uncertain.

Many of the changes in the act right now are designed to respond to long-standing criticisms and to enforcement challenges, but I worry, to be frank, that fixing these problems is only.... We're not really addressing the underlying structural problems of how the act is designed. The fact that we've got all of these little different ways of going about characterizing conduct is actually just going to generate new problems. We haven't really done the rethink we need.

I could give one example. There's been an attempt to standardize the way we approach different reviewable practices, but in doing so, the fundamental question is, do we need to do that or could we just have one recourse for anti-competitive practices? Why, all of a sudden, are we blurring the lines between all of these different recourses? To me, that's creating a legal ambiguity that's not going to help anyone. I have other examples, but I'll talk about that in the questions, because I see my time going.

The second thing we need is a mechanism by which the act can be updated on a regular basis. Even with a perfect reform right now, we can't just stop and rest on our laurels. I think it's prudent to think about that now. We've had 15 years between the last reform and now; that's too long. What that means is that we've had to take on a huge reform and split it over three bills, but we've done it in two years. Everyone is still catching their breath, it's been so fast.

Given the pace at which technological and societal changes are occurring, I think it would make sense to plan for periodic review at maybe a three- or five-year interval. That way, we could do things in manageable chunks and not have to use this sort of wholescale giant process and then put it in a budget bill. I think we have to get into that mindset.

The third thing I'm going to raise is that for this reform to work it needs to be supported by adequate resources and expertise. Bill C-56 and Bill C-59 especially add considerable components to the bureau's mandate, and I don't see any new resources coming here. The last ones were allocated in 2021, as far as I know.

I worry for things like understanding labour impacts in mergers and trying to determine whether the bureau can issue a certificate for expertise in environmental issues. Are those things that we should just leave to the existing resources? I think we need to ask ourselves that question: Do we have the resources to make this work?

Finally, this is not the end—and I will close quickly, Mr. Chair. At the beginning of this process a couple of years ago, there was a lot of energy and enthusiasm, and it seemed like there was more audacity and willingness to think outside the box. Then we kind of got into a more technocratic mindset, and what we have before us are a lot of changes, but they are mostly technical and legal.

I think we still need to have that broader conversation about what competition law and policy in the 21st century look like, and we need to do that by consulting people and talking to Canadians about what they want and then maybe having a broader process of approaching it. There's a lot of energy. There are a lot of new voices to the conversation. There's a lot of enthusiasm. I really wish they would do that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Ms. Quaid.

We want to get to members' questions, and you'll have a lot of opportunity to expand.

I'm looking at the time. We have a little over 35 minutes. That will allow for one full round, and then the second round will be a truncated round where each party will only have a couple of minutes. However, in the first round, each party will have six minutes to ask the witnesses questions.

We are starting with MP Williams for the first six minutes.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for attending today on a very important act, specifically talking about competition.

Canadians know that we have a competition monopoly problem in Canada. Canadians are paying some of the highest fees and have an affordability problem for groceries, airlines, cellphones and banking. We've been very focused on looking at those changes, and the government has brought forth some of those changes and some of those bills.

Ms. Quaid, the first bill you mentioned, Bill C-56, was the Affordable Housing and Groceries Act. Of course, we're looking at Bill C-59 now with new changes.

I have a short question first. Yes or no, does Bill C-59 fix our monopoly problem, our competition problem, in Canada?

[Dr. Jennifer Quaid]

No, not completely.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

We saw that with Bill C-56, too, I think. You've mentioned in the past that it tinkers around the edges.

I really want to get into how we fix competition in Canada. You talked about probably looking more at a focused approach, looking at the Competition Act as a whole. The amendments to these bills fix some of the overlying problems that we've had for years. We know that we have, when we look at mergers that were approved by this government.... Let's start with mergers, perhaps.

We had the Rogers and Shaw merger that was approved. Even though the Competition Bureau said that this merger shouldn't have gone through, the tribunal that was in place said that it should go through. Then what was really surprising was that Rogers sued the Competition Bureau and got over $13 million from it because of the tribunal's reaction.

How do we fix mergers, and if that's one of the main aspects, is that the most important aspect we should be looking at? What are the one or two most important aspects that we should be looking at in the Competition Act to fix?

[Dr. Jennifer Quaid]

I'll try to respond briefly.

Mergers are something that has been modified over the past couple of bills. What I worry about is that we're doing things that make good sound bites but don't necessarily fit into an overall structure.

One of my worries is that we repealed the efficiencies defence. I was one of the people who were not fans of the defence. However, we still have to think about how we evaluate pro-competitive benefits because mergers do provide pro-competitive benefits, depending on the circumstances. We've just left that silent, along with a bunch of other things that were associated with section 96 that I don't think are going to go away. We also have added a whole bunch of new things. There's been an attempt to try to put some structural guardrails around merger reviews, so market share now can be taken into account and so on.

However, we haven't really stepped back and asked what the right levels are. Should we have structural rules, and what are they? What's appropriate for Canada? I worry that the intentions are good, but that we haven't necessarily had the time, quite frankly, to seriously think about what a restructured merger law would do that would help us, given our economy, given the tendency towards concentration. What do we do? I think we need to think about that. I don't think we've done enough yet. I worry that what's happened is that we've tinkered with a bunch of things and that it's not going to produce results.

I don't think that mergers are the only area that's important. I do think that dealing with practices where market power is used for anti-competitive reasons also needs to be addressed—and there are a bunch of flavours of that kind of conduct; we call them reviewable practices. I really am asking myself this in looking at the way the reform was done: Why don't we take these things apart, take a look, and say what bothers us about the abuse of economic power? Why are we actually parsing it into little categories? Why don't we rethink and start over? I think that abuse of a dominant position—that, more generally, abuse of economic power—should be rethought, particularly with the digital reality.

Finally, I do think that although some of the aspects of deceptive marketing are interesting, we need to think about that, too. Greenwashing is a big issue. Does it all need to be done by competition, or could it be done in other areas? We have to think about how those pieces fit together.

Those are some of the things that are high-level. I suppose the other small thing I would say is that we're adding a lot of private rights of action that go to the tribunal, but no one's talking about the tribunal. How is it resourced? Right now, it's a roster of a few Federal Court judges and lay members. Who are those lay members? Maybe we need to diversify the skills. We're not thinking about that.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

I guess the main question is whether a tribunal is the right process. Seeing how, again, we had a result that overturned the Competition Bureau with resources that come from Parliament, and the fact that a major dominant company was able to sue the Competition Bureau and win more than $13 million, is the tribunal just not staffed and resourced, or is it something that we need to completely look over as well?

[Dr. Jennifer Quaid]

Speaking carefully, because it's a small group of people who are associated with the tribunal, I think that part of it is the original structure of how the tribunal was created. It has a right of appeal. It's not quite a court, not quite an administrative tribunal. It's trying to thread the needle, and I don't think it's threading it the right way. If we really want an expert tribunal that can make its own decisions based on competition principles and maybe not be encumbered by the process of courts and some of the binding precedent rules and so on, then we should look at that seriously; but that's not what's happening right now.

However, I also think we really need to diversify the decision-makers. There has to be a judicial member, but does it need to be a Federal Court judge? Do we need to have a federally based tribunal, or should we look to a model where we use the regular courts? I think there are different opinions on that, but we haven't really studied the question.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

You did touch upon greenwashing. Are the amendments to greenwashing right? What do we need to do to fix them, and is this a pressing concern right now in Canada with everything else happening?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Ms. Quaid, I need a 10-second answer, because that's where we're at.

[Dr. Jennifer Quaid]

I think others, who have appeared before me, have made some good suggestions. I don't think it's enough, and I do think it's an important issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Now we'll go to MP Weiler for six minutes, please.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Thank you, Chair. I want to thank the witnesses for their testimony.

I want to ask my questions to Mr. Brown. I think it's appropriate that we're having this discussion today, because it is National Tourism Week. This is very much a tourism-related issue, and Whistler is one of the flagship tourist destinations in Canada.

You described in your opening how we have these areas of Whistler that are zoned specifically for short-term tourist rentals, and the unit base was built up by seeking foreign direct investment, but they're actually restricted from becoming long-term rentals, because of the covenants that were put forward by the municipality.

I was hoping you might be able to expand on this. What is the volume of properties that will be impacted by this underused housing tax, which will be an annual tax on the value of the property?

[David Brown]

There are approximately 6,600 tourist accommodation rental units located on resort lands. These are one-, two- and three-bedroom units, or approximately 9,300 bedrooms. About 12% of these properties—somewhere between 10% and 15%—are owned by U.S. and international property owners, so about 790 to 1,110 bedrooms. For every sale that results in one unit leaving the tourist rental pool to become a B.C. second home, Whistler could stand to lose, on average, 305 unique visitors to Whistler, 788 visitor days, $90,870 in accommodation revenue, $2,726 in MRTD revenue, $7,270 in PST, $4,544 in GST and approximately $280,000 in annual resort spending.

A loss of 12% of Whistler's tourist accommodation rental inventory—noting that the share of Whistler's U.S. and international accommodation ownership is somewhere between 10% and 15%—could result in a shortfall of more than $100 million in annual visitor spending if phase 1 properties are sold to B.C. second-home owners, who take this accommodation out of the rental pool. There would be additional visitor spending losses in the millions of dollars for phase 2 property owners, who are required to use their accommodation for 28 days a year versus the current usage of 7 to 14 days.

[Patrick Weiler, Liberal, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

I was hoping you might be able to explain this to the committee: If an international owner sells their accommodation to a Canadian owner, why wouldn't Whistler see the same benefits or results?