Finance committee  In answer to that question, the announcement of the program was on September 25. We had just put the proposal for a private sector service delivery model together. So it's with you now. I very quickly want to make the point, and it's not unique to the current government, that tourism has not been a central focus of the industry department for a long time.

Finance committee  Rather than taking these decisions in isolation and doing one-off investments, if both governments had followed through on the elaboration of the national tourism strategy that Minister Rock announced in December 2003, then when it came time to decide on the kinds of investments to make or where to make cuts, we would have had a rational overall plan in which to fit those kinds of things.

Finance committee  The United States doesn't, simply because it doesn't have a value-added tax at the national level. I can understand how our government might have looked across the border, not seen one, and concluded we didn't need one, but then again, they don't have a GST. Essentially most of the major OECD countries that are significant travel destinations have one.

Finance committee  I think when we looked hard at the program, it was our sense that it could probably be delivered fairly efficiently by a third party entity. While we aren't pleased about the loss of jobs, we think that with the right incentives and the right restructuring, there could be some reduction in the overhead of this program, and that's laid out in our proposal.

Finance committee  Not to my knowledge. In fact, Mexico has just added one, and many of the European countries that have a value-added tax have been widening the scope of items that are eligible to be claimed. In fact, it's moving in the other direction.

Finance committee  It's going to make life more difficult.

Finance committee  I don't want to get too much into the details of our proposal, but it would see the creation of sub-licensees or rebaters at all the border points, airports, and marine embarkation points across the country. I can't speak specifically to Summerside. We understand the situation, and it's more than just the loss of those jobs.

Finance committee  Randy Williams is the president of our association. He was making that observation in the context that post-9/11, airline traffic gradually climbed back to a pre-event level after a few years, and SARS had a temporary impact on visits to Toronto as well. I think the point he was trying to make was that this would be a permanent addition of 6% to the cost structure facing these people, and hence it may well have a longer-term impact.

Finance committee  I wonder if I could just briefly read into the record—it'll just take a second—the testimony from one tour package operator on the potential impact here. She says:I realize we're just one small example of the U.K. tour operator industry. However, this additional 6% will, most probably, result in our company being forced to cancel our winter charter flight series for Winter 2007-08, if sales are significantly impacted by the increase in ski tour package prices.

Finance committee  We're mindful of the government's desire to make some savings here, so in a spirit of cooperation, we thought we would put forward a proposal that would see the privatization of the scheme and the reduction in the overhead or expense costs of the program. Had we been consulted at the beginning, our preference would have been to keep the program in place as it was, but we're faced with a shifting ground here and we're trying to react to that responsibly.

Finance committee  We were told by Department of Finance officials that the cost, including salaries and overhead, was in the order of $7.5 million.

Finance committee  I can add that if you take the convention sector--and by this I mean the stand-alone convention centres, not the ones that are located in hotels, and there were about seven that we surveyed--in 2005 they reported total spending of $119 million, of which the GST was $8.3 million.

Finance committee  We would contest the 3% number on the basis that I think the government or the Department of Finance made the calculation on the assumption that every one of the 35 million visitors to Canada would be making a claim, when in fact we know that people travel as couples, families, and in groups.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Tourism Industry Association of Canada represents 400 members and approximately 200,000 tourism-related businesses in Canada, of which 80% are small- or medium-sized enterprises. We contribute about $26 billion to the GDP of this country annually. We employ in the tourism sector directly 625,000 people.