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Tourism leaders like call to repeal sales tax
Posted By JENNIFER PELLEGRINI
Niagara tourism industry insiders say they support John Tory and Tim Hudak’s call for the government to repeal the provincial sales tax for attractions and accommodations this summer. “Anything that will help bring tourists to Niagara Falls is a good thing,” said Chamber of Commerce president Carolyn Bones, during the chamber’s monthly Business After Five meeting at the Edgewater’s Tap House and Grill Wednesday.
Earlier in the day Hudak and Tory, the Niagara-West Glanbrook MPP and provincial Conservative leader, challenged the provincial government to suspend the eight per cent provincial sales tax on hotels and attractions to stimulate visits to Ontario.
The announcement came one day after Statistics Canada revealed the number of foreign visits to Canada fell to just 2.3 million in March - the lowest number of tourists since record-keeping began in 1972 - while Canadians travelled abroad in record numbers.
Hudak said the move would cost Ontario more than $100 million in revenue, but would stimulate the struggling tourism industry.
“It’s modelled on the successful plan we had to help the tourism industry in the summer of 2003, when we were hard hit by SARS,” Hudak said.
“We estimate the cost would be $130 million if (Premier) Dalton McGuinty accepts our program from today through Labour Day.”
Hudak and Tory estimate a family of four could save about $93 on a getaway to Toronto. Savings could also be had on things like admission to Canada’s Wonderland, a Blue Jays game or the CN Tower. “It used to be that they would plunk their money down (at an attraction) and not ask ‘How much?,’” said Tim Parker, general manager of Ripley’s Niagara Falls. “Now, people jump from attraction to attraction, hotel to hotel and restaurant to restaurant (in search of the best prices).
“And if they can’t really afford the rate, the first place they cut is on the tip, and the people that hurts most are the servers.”
Niagara Parks Commission general manager John Kernahan welcomed the news
“We pay $3.7 million a year back to the province” through taxes collected, Kernahan said. “That’s $3.7 million that would stay in tourists’ pockets.”
But not everyone is on side with the proposal.
St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley, who until last fall led the Ministry of Tourism, said it isn’t as easy as it sounds to simply waive the tax.
“These temporary, gimmicky measures often do not have the desired effect,” he said, recalling times when taxes were rolled back for vehicle purchases.
The result, he said, was a spike in purchases during the “sale” and then a steep decline once the taxes resumed.
He also said the money is needed to fund government programs, such as marketing Ontario to the world.
Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor went a step further.
“In isolation, it sounds good. I acknowledge that,” he said. “But you have to look beyond that. Which services should (the government) not provide?”
In an odd twist, Bradley and Craitor may have an unlikely ally - Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
While in Niagara Wednesday, Harper was asked about offering tax relief of a different type to consumers this summer, by lowering the fuel taxes on gasoline.
“The ability of governments to affect the price of gasoline per se is so small that it’s not worth doing,” Harper said. “What you’ve really got to do is lower costs for consumers generally, rather than try to fight the upward trend in the price of gasoline.”
Harper said overall tax cuts, like the two percentage points his government has taken off the GST, are the best way to bring savings to consumers.
Article ID# 1037274
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