Mr. Speaker, I have to humbly say that we never advocated $500 million to the professional sports realm. That was never part of the deal.
Our commitment to the developmental part of the amateur sport fabric in the country, including the physical fitness component, was somewhere in the neighbourhood of $60 million a year for the next five years, which was $300 million.
We also put on the table some areas where we thought moneys could be generated. Currently, all the lottery moneys in the country, which the then Prime Minister Joe Clark gave away to the provinces in 1979 in exchange for support for his leadership, or a payoff for his leadership, are going directly to the provinces.
I believe there is an opportunity for getting together with the premiers and saying that a portion of those moneys should come back into the amateur sport fabric, especially those gaming systems where they use the professional sports' logos. I see great hope for that in the future. The Minister of Industry for Canada has currently set up a system where all those things are being explored.
As far as interfering with the operations of the amateur federations on a day to day basis, I really do not think as parliamentarians we should interfere with the way they operate other than the fact that I think we should make sure that all of the facilities and all the opportunities across the country are there in both official languages.