They're telling it as it is: better tips mean better service.

"There's a lot of people who will have a $300 bill and they'll give me a dollar tip. I won't accept it; it's just an insult to me," said Costa Mastoropoulos, a server in Iqaluit.

He's been in Iqaluit for the last year and a half. He began working at the Discovery Lodge, and now he's a waiter at the Kamotiq Inn.

He said a $1 tip is not the worst of it, sometimes he'll finish a shift with less money then he started with.

"Almost twice a day people come in to drink a bunch of beers and order food.

"Then they walk out and the bill comes out of our pockets. They don't even pay their bills, never mind a tip," said Mastoropoulos.

At the Kamotiq, Mastoropoulos said the average tip is about five per cent of the bill.

What upsets him the most is when he serves government officials and they don't leave a tip.

"What am I supposed to say? I know they have a job," he explained.

The best solution he can see to the problem is including the tip in the bill. An acceptable percentage to tip, in his view, is about 10 to 15 per cent.

He openly admits better tips means better service.

"It's definitely true. The service is better with good tips but we always give good service, no matter what," he said.

Becky Gurr agrees with Mastoropoulos.

"If I have a customer I know is not a good tipper, I'll still treat them nicely but I'm not going to go out of my way like I would for someone I know is a good tipper," she explained.

She's worked at the Frobisher Inn's restaurant for two-and-a-half months. She said tips in Iqaluit are for the most part acceptable, but hardly ever exceptional. She's received tips as low as one per cent of the bill.

"I'm use to tips being somewhere between 10 to 15 per cent but that's not the case here," said Gurr.

In Rankin Inlet, Karen Ransom said most people tip. She has worked at the Wild Wolf Cafe since September.

"Even some people coming in for a coffee leave something for us," she explained.

Whenever she goes out to eat, she said she'll tip about 10 per cent of the bill. At the same time, she doesn't expect better service for it.

"I treat everyone the same even if they don't tip," said Ransom.

The section on Canada at worldweb.com suggests to people visiting the country that tipping somewhere between 10 to 20 per cent of the bill is acceptable, depending on the service.

Mastoropoulos thinks everyone, even the people who live in this country, should follow this guideline.

"If they can afford to order beers and food and pay the bill then they should be able to afford the tip," he said.