Thank you.
You may well want to talk to the tourism minister or the minister of small business as well. They may have something to add.
There are a couple of things I would say. As you mentioned in your preamble, part of it is cost. For example, on airport rental costs, the costs today are one half of what they were in 2005. We've cut them in half for airport rentals. That's a significant reduction from what it was in another era. It's considerably less.
The other thing, though, is that we're also suffering, in some ways, from a higher Canadian dollar. When we had a 70¢ dollar, it was a pretty cheap trip to jump on an airplane and go north. Now that we're closer to par, for people who have only so many disposable dollars, that becomes part of the decision-making process. It means that we have to work harder.
One of the things, for example, when I was in China.... They're delighted that Canada has approved destination status. We negotiated that with China for visitors coming from China. That's why several airlines spoke to me there about increasing travel to Canada, now that we have that status, in order to take advantage of that. I think that's going to be a real growth area for us.
This just points to the fact that in our gateway discussions, including the Atlantic gateway, we need to find ways to keep those tourism dollars coming in. That's a hugely important industry for Canada. We are taking steps, but I think it's going to take a full court press by all levels of government. That's why a gateway approach is usually best. It's never just one thing. It's going to be everything from tourist attractions to facilities, to ease to come in and out, visa determination, and approved destination status. All of these sorts of things are part and parcel of a good tourism industry.