Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre for his great contribution to the subcommittee. His insight and his own family experience in terms of working with young people and bringing that knowledge to the subcommittee were sincerely appreciated by all members on all sides.
I have to go back to the member's comments on the professional side of this debate. We will repeat this many times today. In our report there was only one recommendation called the sports pact which dealt with the professional sports systems. It would have been very easy for us to say let us forget about the professional stuff because it is going to create too much controversy and criticism because all Canadians will do is focus on the salaries of the multimillionaire players.
It is very important for us to let the House and Canadians know the reason we took on that very tough decision of signalling to Canadians that we have a problem on the professional side. The NHL alone over a five year period contributes $1.35 billion to all levels of government. That money goes into the treasuries.
These NHL teams are not being subsidized. They are sending huge sums of the money to the various treasuries in Canada, those of the municipal and provincial governments and even the national government. Canadians in the end will decide. I think it is very important that as we criticize the high salaries of the players, we should also be well aware of what the treasuries in Canada are receiving from the professional sports industry. I think $1.35 billion over five years is a substantial amount.
We know that our smaller market teams are facing difficulties. We know there is a strain because of the exchange rate of the dollar and the disadvantage to our tax system. We did not say the government should absolutely deal with tax fairness, but we did we have a problem and it is a debate for all Canadians. When we have this debate, let us not refuse to acknowledge the great contribution made to the treasuries by the professional teams.