Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is a very responsible proposal to the bill. It pertains, of course, to the visitor GST rebate program and the changes that were made. I know we can't make any amendments to this bill that would cause the deletion of this whole area or change the amounts of money involved; however, we can call for a review of this provision after a period of time. I'm recommending a year after amendments come into force, so we can determine whether the concerns of the tourism industry and many of the other organizations that came to see us, like the hotel association, are legitimate and whether or not there's been a serious impact on tourism, on visits from other countries, and the health of the industry as a whole.
I would urge folks to approve this. It follows some concerns we read about in the paper, in the news, just this past week about some German and Dutch operators who say they're going to stop selling Canadian tour packages this year because of these changes to the GST rebate program for foreign visitors.
I think the best we can do today, since there's probably no will to delete the clause and go back to the full GST rebate program, is to have a timely review and to then have that reported back to Parliament.