Thank you, Mr. Masse.
Clearly, there are components of our industry, like the bed-and-breakfast sector in British Columbia, that had hitherto been exempt from the PST but are now going to see a significant rise in their costs. I think, though, that perhaps we should preface this by saying that all service sectors should be assessed on the impact of an HST, not just tourism, particularly if you're a labour-intensive industry. The impacts that befall a sector like ours would be worthwhile examining.
One thing we could perhaps say is that given that this is falling in the midst of both an economic recession and a pretty steep decline in visitation, the timing of this isn't so good. Maybe in some ways--and this could be a matter for the provincial governments--we could look at some kind of holiday or phase-in that would allow some of the tourism businesses not to be whacked so hard and so suddenly with this steep increase in their prices. But in some ways, that's a provincial issue.
That would be my view.