Finance committee  Mr. Chairman, I would like to respond to that question by saying that by maintaining this program, federal government coffers are in fact going to be enhanced. As opposed to taking that route, I would encourage the government to maintain it. You'll actually generate more revenue.

Finance committee  May I respond to that? The fact of the matter is that the announcement was trying to save $78 million. The federal government alone is making $218 million a year on the convention business. You weren't in here when I made my presentation, but I fully agree. Is that entire $218 m

Finance committee  First of all, the Canadian Tourism Commission does invest some dollars into it. Typically, it's a responsibility of the provinces. I don't want to get into the BNA Act and sections 91 and 92, but that's what the reality is. The fact of the matter is that it's a double-edged swor

Finance committee  I don't want to sound Torontocentric—I happen to live in Ottawa—but the city of Toronto alone lost $600 million. Right across the country, we lost $1.6 billion because of SARS. The unfortunate thing is that it was located strictly in Toronto, but business in Vancouver, for exampl

Finance committee  Yes, I would. It is very important for the entire committee. Mr. Paquette, thank you for your questions. There are two separate and distinct areas to what we are looking at in the visitor rebate program. There is one area for the independent traveller, and that's all the gover

Finance committee  May I answer, Mr. Chair? Thank you very much. The reality is that in the hotel business, particularly for the group convention and the tour business, we aren't talking about 3%. This is an exemption that is used globally by virtually every tour group coming into Canada, and this

Finance committee  Completely, and as I pointed out in my statement, this is $1.28 billion worth of business, of which the federal government is receiving $218 million worth of taxes. The argument I put forward is that we're trying to save $75 million, but we're putting $218 million in jeopardy.

Finance committee  For the convention business, the amount of administration is almost negligible. What happens is that a tour operator, conventioneer, wherever, outside of the country, using the proper CRA criteria, fills in the form stating that 75% of the people that are coming here are from out

Finance committee  Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to be back here again with you. It seems like it was only about six weeks ago. My name is Tony Pollard. I am president of the Hotel Association of Canada. We represent all of the lodging industry across Canada. I'm not going to n

Finance committee  The first point you have to be conscious of is that we are lacking a sufficient number of workers. Out in Alberta you know this very well. We've got hotels out there that are only half open because we don't have the people to work in them. We need to be able to convince the huma

Finance committee  Why don't you do passports and I'll do China?

Finance committee  I'll be very brief. You have to be cautious with China ADS. There are only so many A340s and 767s in the world to be able to fly people across from China to Canada. It won't be the panacea a lot of people think it would be. The other thing is we've prepared a document, a book,

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate being invited back here once again to meet with this group. My association represents all of the lodging industry right across Canada. We did about $13 billion in revenue last year. About $11.5 billion is generated as value-added