Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in today's debate, and to congratulate my colleague, the member for Longueuil, on her initiative for this opposition day.
I also congratulate the member for Rimouski—Mitis for her work on the subcommittee, where she contributed a number of rather interesting clarifications on the study of sport in Canada.
My colleague's motion reads as follows:
That, since the government ignored most of the recommendations by the Sub-Committee on the Study of Sport in Canada, a Sub-Committee of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, the House demand that the government place amateur athletes at the heart of its concerns and make a commitment to placing their interests before the interests of professional sport.
I think that the most pressing problem of this government's present policy on sport is the priorities and the mandate adopted by the Department of Canadian Heritage with respect to sport. The priority is to promote national unity, which is a propaganda mandate. We are strongly opposed to using sport to promote national unity.
The sole objective of amateur sport in Canada should be to promote excellence, and not to use athletes to serve a political ideology.
While the Minister of Industry will be following up on the mandate given him by the Prime Minister to save professional hockey in Canada, and calling a meeting in mid-June at which the provinces and the municipalities concerned will have to help fund sports millionaires, this same Liberal government is dismissing out of hand any additional funding for amateur sport.
I would like to point out that a few weeks ago I tabled a petition in the House signed by over 1,000 people in my riding deploring the fact that this government wants to subsidize sports millionaires.
It is clear once again that the federal government is choosing the rich over the poor. The federal government is in urgent need of re-examining its priorities.
In November 1998 the Subcommittee on the Study of Sport in Canada submitted its report to the government. Most of the report's recommendations dealt with the increased support that ought to be given to amateur sport, but recommendation No. 36 proposed that the government invest millions of dollars in professional sport.
This is what all members of the public are opposed to. When asked, everyone in Canada, and everyone in Quebec calls for no more investing millions of dollars in professional sport, for no more support to be given to what are termed the millionaires of sport.
If this government had any gumption it would understand that if there is any money to invest it could go into amateur sport, to the athletes who are often from poor backgrounds, whose parents have had to do without things that would have contributed to their well-being in order to support their children and encourage their top performance.
On April 28, 1999, while the Minister of Canadian Heritage was out of the country, her parliamentary secretary tabled the government response on her behalf. This government said no to any additional funding for amateur sport; yes to activities that will enhance the visibility of the federal government, such as the holding of a symposium on sport to be chaired by the Prime Minister; and probably yes to professional sport.
The Bloc Quebecois has always said that the subcommittee on sport was nothing but an excuse to support professional sports. Once again, the facts seem to bear this out.
There is considerable consternation in the world of amateur sport at this time. To quote Lane MacAdam, President of the Canada Games Council, as reported in the Globe and Mail of April 29, 1999:
This is a black day for amateur sport. It would appear that the government has chosen hockey millionaires over the 1.3 million poor children who have no access to sports. Amateur sport has been cheated.
The head of Athletics Canada, John Thresher, said this in the Globe and Mail the same day:
Compared to other G-7 countries, our athletes are second class citizens.
Here is what Jean-Luc Brassard had to say, as reported by Pierre Bourgault in the May 1, 1999 issue of the Journal de Montréal :
Will we have to parade behind our sponsors' flags in the future?
Since they took office in 1993, Liberals have done everything except support the development of Canadian amateur sport. They have made it a political issue more than ever before. Members will certainly remember that the heritage minister asked the Canadian Olympic Association to delay the announcement that Quebec City had lost its bid to host the 2010 Winter Games.
They have reduced their financial support for amateur sport by more than 35%. The envelope went from $76 million to $57 million, including the recent addition of $50 million over 5 years announced by the heritage minister in 1998. The predictable result is that, since 1993, 22 national sports associations no longer receive funding from Heritage Canada.
I hope all those watching understood what I just said. Since 1993, 22 national sports associations have stopped receiving any funding from Heritage Canada.
Finally, the Liberals rejected the recommendations made in the report of the Sub-committee on the Study of Sport in Canada, accepting only those that will not cost anything, that will ensure government visibility, or that will allow the funding of professional sport.
I would have a lot more to say about such an important issue, but I will conclude by responding to the member for Bourassa, who does not seem to understand the concrete proposals made by the Bloc Quebecois to support our athletes.
Our recommendations are: to provide adequate funding for the INRS-Santé laboratory in Pointe-Claire, which remains without a contract for the current year and which may not even get all the money pledged for 1998-99; to fund the upgrading of its facilities, at a cost of some $500,000; to fund all sport associations; to review the criteria used to deliver certificates to amateur athletes to promote excellence in Quebec and Canada; and, finally, to exclude politics from sport.