Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, this is clearly a worrisome situation.
Indeed, we are asking that a special committee be struck to look into this extremely important issue. My hon. colleague from Repentigny mentioned that many things have happened since 1993. All kinds of agreements were signed without parliamentarians being involved. Individuals who are not accountable to anyone have negotiated agreements on our behalf and did not even ask our opinion. That is unacceptable.
I will take what I witnessed this morning as an example. A sub-committee of the heritage committee was set up to examine the issue of sports in Canada. When we heard witnesses from amateur sport, no one was there. The room was almost empty. There were no reporters, hence no media coverage, and just a few Liberals. In attendance were, besides the chair of the committee of course, perhaps one or two Liberal members and myself, the only opposition member.
This morning however, there were not enough seats for all the members who came to hear NHL officials lament about the horrible situation their industry is in because they are not generating enough profits. Mr. Corey told us Molson made only $5 million in profits last year. My comment to him was that it was too bad that members of his team earned more than he did.
That is the tragedy, no effort is made to sit down and discuss. I have nothing against businesses turning a profit, that is what they are about, but they should also pay their share of taxes. Only those who make money have to pay taxes.
I have met with people in my riding throughout the Easter break and all day yesterday. They told me “We do not want to pay for Montreal again, Mrs. Tremblay. We hope you will object to that. We are still paying for the Olympic stadium and now we are expected to pay for the core revival. We are unemployed. On the lumber issue, we went three or four times before NAFTA panels. We won every time, but nothing came of it. Our foresters are going through tough times”.
NAFTA also applies to hockey teams. Let them go and argue before a NAFTA panel their case against the unfair subsidies American hockey teams receive from the municipalities, states and federal government in the United States. Do not come and ask us to give them money.