Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak on this legislation. I commend my colleague from Broadview-Greenwood who from time to time brings issues forth in this House. They are usually very controversial but are necessary for the public to have debated in places like the Parliament of Canada and the provincial legislatures.
I know sometimes people say the member for Broadview-Greenwood sometimes comes up with ideas that cause some of his colleagues some difficulty because they would prefer not to have them debated in a public forum. Perhaps this is one of them.
This bill goes into an area where there has been considerable controversy in the province of Nova Scotia, perhaps also the province of Alberta and some of the western provinces where gaming, casinos and video lottery terminals have been taken over and regulated by governments and have become a source of revenue for governments. It begs the ethical and moral argument about whether or not gambling is sinful, whether or not gambling is something that should be spurned or shunned and whether or not government should be involved in it. There are very important debates which should and must take place.
At the same time some of the very people who raise all those questions are the same people who say that governments should cut back on personal income taxes, find other sources of revenue that they are not stripping arbitrarily out of the wallets of individuals. I would say to those individuals that they cannot have it both ways.
It seems that it is human nature that people sometimes like to play games of chance. I am a victim of playing games of chance. I like to play scratch and win games. I do not think I go through an airport that I do not pick up a $2 ticket. It is $2 one I can afford. It is my bit of fun perhaps at the end of the week on the way home on a Thursday night or a Friday morning. Periodically I win a few dollars and periodically I lose a few dollars.
I do it because I want to do it. I as an adult make a conscious decision that is what I want to do. I do it in a framework knowing that the lottery corporation, be it in Ontario or be it the Atlantic lottery corporation, properly regulates the game. I do it knowing what my odds are because they are printed on the back of the tickets. I do not have to worry about whether it is a scam. I do not have to worry about whether it is one of these mail order things that say "do this and you win eligibility for a $20 million prize".
I do it with the full knowledge that the Canadian institutions of government have regulated it and are making sure that the printed odds are actually the odds in the game and that I am not getting ripped off. I make the conscious choice to do it.
What the hon. member has put before us in the middle of all of this controversy about gaming and video lottery terminals and whether they should be in corner stores or whatever is very important. He has hit on the leading wave of technology, the Internet.
It is quite amazing because I am not one of those people who are not terribly technologically proficient. I fumble around on my little computer at home. Most times my five-year old son Stephen or Matthew is able to browse me through where I want to go a little easier than I can do it.
The reality is it is a wired world today. That is what it is. The reality is, as the hon. member opposite just stated, that we can do pretty much anything. From my home on Saturday I called up Debates from the previous Parliament on the Internet. I was amazed that I could actually do it. It also means that my constituents can do it. I can buy car insurance. I can find out where I want to shop. I can book a holiday anywhere in the world. I can find out what temperature it is on a beach down on the west coast of Florida. The world is wired. It is the new wave.
Anybody who thinks they are able to keep off the Internet the provision of leisure gaming services is crazy. It is already there. Today in my office-I did not know you could do this-I sat down, worked around for bit and hooked up with the Liechtenstein Gaming Corporation in Liechtenstein. It is a city, a mountain, a river, and that is it. That is what the place is. I was in the Liechtenstein Gaming Corporation casino.