Finance committee  Toronto...for most people, Toronto and—

Finance committee  I would suggest that you have to become a consumer-based economy, so you have to be a guest service based economy. To me it sounds as if some of the decisions—

Finance committee  Well, if you've removed all the opportunity for them, then you've removed your ability to provide that service. I think municipality by municipality they'd have to look at that, and either embrace it or say it's not for them. I do a lot of consulting with small towns, and they say they want to be in the tourism business.

Finance committee  You are absolutely correct in that assumption. The overseas travellers do tend to stay longer with us than the U.S. travellers do, but the U.S. travellers do return. Not only do they return numerous times, and I can attest to that from direct experience, but they also then encourage visiting friends and family that they must go up to Canada and visit Cape Breton, or P.E.I., or whatever it is.

Finance committee  Yes, it is.

Finance committee  I'm checking my sources.

Finance committee  It would have a material impact on the decision-making in the States. In particular, most people do their own travel planning now, especially in North America, and are booking online. They would see the Canadian dollar converted into U.S. dollars on whatever source they're using, so they would automatically see that found discount of roughly 20% on what normalized hotel stays would be, say, or air transportation.

Finance committee  Yes. I believe that market economics are such that we'll see a change and there will be much broader support for reconnecting with the United States' marketing efforts. I think that current thinking within the CTC, under David's new leadership, will also fundamentally change.

Finance committee  That's pretty much correct, except that industry and our marketing associations may be able to do a two-dollar match for every dollar given by the federal government.

Finance committee  That would be the number one issue we do talk about in terms of international access. After market economics dictate that the consumer trend and confidence are returning, then we have to have the accessible gateways, and frankly our gateways are more expensive than those going into Europe or into the United States or into some of the BRIC countries as we were talking about earlier.

Finance committee  I've been burned at a board meeting before, so....

Finance committee  What we're talking about in this proposal is hard dollars. We're proposing that they be channelled through the CTC, which is an ongoing mechanism for us, and it would be pure industry as well as some of the supporting associations, the DMOs and the PMOs.

Finance committee  I do not have that data.

Finance committee  We can provide that for the committee, absolutely.

Finance committee  I would say it has somewhat. The U.S. has invested a great deal of money, and they have an automatic mechanism through their visas to be able to fund that program. Brand U.S.A. is very strong, and it has attracted a lot of international attention, but I think, similar to my presentation, as the strength of the U.S. dollar dropped, that allowed many more people to come in and experience....