Thank you for the question.
In terms of who would pay the tax, our specific recommendations are around Airbnb collecting the HST on the commissions that they charge for the host. We also believe that hosts who are above that $30,000 threshold—and that's a growing segment. We have many what we call commercial operators, those being hosts who rent out entire homes, and probably the fastest growing segment, multi-unit owners that are really operating like hotels. They should obviously be paying GST as well. Again, there's a big gap in tax revenue that's not currently being collected there, and it's growing exponentially.
We applaud what's happened in Quebec. We have a similar tourism levy here in Alberta. We also believe that platforms like Airbnb should be collecting on that. Those types of fees and taxes are invested in tourism and help to drive visitation to our country. The beneficiaries of that visitation are in fact the hosts of some of these short-term rental sharing operations.
Again, we're not asking for special treatment; we're just asking for a fair, level playing field for operators who compete directly with our business.