Mr. Speaker, my friend in the Reform Party, the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, made some good points with respect to amateur sports. He also indicated that professional sports franchises should not receive any more tax breaks, but that he supports tax breaks for everybody.
There are a couple of points I want to make. The municipal governments in the country, for example, Ottawa, benefits directly as a community from the Ottawa Senators through jobs, other taxes, revenues and fees. It also charges the Ottawa Senators about $4.2 million in property taxes, which is now burdening the Ottawa Senators and is pressuring them to move out of the country.
With respect to these municipal property taxes, which are extremely high, does the member think that all of Canada, including Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca constituents and those in Saskatchewan and Manitoba that have no pro hockey teams, should be asked to subsidize the municipality of Ottawa which is a charging these pro teams exorbitant taxes and is driving them out of the country?
Does he support the current tax situation for professional hockey teams? Let us look at a company that buys a big box in an arena for about $120,000. The taxpayers now support that box purchased by a business to the tune of $27,000 to $30,000 on the $120,000 through lost tax expenditures. Does he support this continued multimillion dollar support of pro franchises?
Does he agree with his Reform colleague, the member for Kootenay—Columbia, who said this morning that he supports the tax breaks given to the wealthy hockey players? There are 650 NHL hockey players, averaging $1.8 million a year in salaries, who have just been given a Liberal tax break in this budget of about $14,000 each on average. Does he agree with that?