Thank you, Madam Chair.
Let me add my congratulations to my friend Mr. Waugh on successfully navigating his bill through the House of Commons. Getting things through the House is never easy, as we all know.
I share your sentiment about working together, a sentiment that's been reinforced in my mind more recently.
For starters, I support this bill, and I understand the reasoning behind it and the issue with respect to illegal gambling. Look, the fact is that I can go out tomorrow and in five minutes place a bet on anything I want for any amount of money I want, and everybody here can. If you don't know somebody, you can find somebody in five minutes.
This makes sense. My concern is the implications that flow from it, because, as we all know, gambling in Canada and here in Ontario, which I can speak to, has been an evolution. You've talked about sports Pro-Line. I remember when that came out. It was monumental. It was groundbreaking stuff. At the time, everybody rushed out and started betting on three hockey games, including me. I did it twice, and the novelty wore off. The concern is that this is going to lead to bigger gambling problems.
I've done some reading. I'm an avid hockey fan. I know that you've talked about sports already, but The Hockey News just came out with its recent edition, which is titled “Money & Power”. In it, there's an article about how the NHL is going to recover from COVID and the impact it's had on them. One of the things they talk about extensively is gambling, and specifically single-game betting.
The road they go down is that these teams are using this as a means to generate more revenue. While they're supporting the issue based on getting rid of criminal activity, greed and desire to make money are sometimes cloaked in nobility, and I think there's a bit of that going on here. Some of these teams are anxiously awaiting this.
In fact, the article makes it very clear the NHL is really hoping this is done in time for the playoffs, because there's a lot of money to be made by the league. It's going to drive fans into rinks, and this is where my question is. Here's what a lot of these teams are going to say: “We are now driving people to bet on games and we're doing it at the games. It's putting bums in seats and putting fingers on bets. We want a piece of the action.”
Do you have any concern that the teams are going to take that greed and advertise, promote and encourage people to participate in this activity in a way that's going to be a detriment to people's mental health and addiction?