Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for the opportunity this morning.
I am Richard Rendeck, CEO of the Nuance Group. I'm here with Myron Keehn today, the director of concessions and development at Edmonton International Airport. We're here today representing a coalition of international airports in our country and duty free operators with respect to advocating an arrivals duty free program consistent with over 50 countries throughout the world.
This is clearly a spreading phenomenon throughout the planet, so now we find ourselves at a competitive disadvantage for our Canadian employees due to cannibalization of our business offshore. I think the government has understood this. We've been here for two years now. Last year, the government put a recommendation in its report for consultation for the budget, so they clearly gave a favourable recommendation for arrivals duty free. We've had those consultations now as well, and we're here today to say thank you for that. We wanted to update the committee on the issue and request that you recommend to the government to include a full implementation in 2010. We've got the ball into the red zone; we're just trying to punch it in.
Really, our point here is that consideration of this program comes at a particularly urgent time, given the economic crisis, the fact that we're a smaller world now, and also the fact that we can't seem to get an international agreement on liquid and gel restrictions, etc. Our business has changed completely, and not for the better, so we're looking for solutions here. With the environment being what it is, I think we present this also as a no-cost stimulus measure for the government. We're not requesting any funding. We're not requesting any assistance. We simply seek a small change in two paragraphs in existing tax law to allow us to recapture some of our business lost to other countries. I think consumers of this country might like it too, but I think you've already determined that.
I'll now hand it over to Myron for a different view.