Despite what some whiners on the other side of the House are saying, I have heard a member of the Liberal Party, whom I will quote in a few minutes, say some really bad things about the Canadian Olympic Association with respect to the Calgary clique, which had some cleaning up to do. We certainly agree with that.
I have no doubt that members of the Liberal Party must also support the principle that the government must invest more if it wants to play a greater role, and I challenge Liberal members interested in amateur sport to tell me otherwise. I am not talking about the gang that looks after professional sports, but rather those interested in amateur sport.
Some things have to be settled: the language problems in Canadian federations, location problems and strategic choices. There is a strong pull from Calgary in amateur sport. They deprived Quebec of a number of sports facilities. They even sent athletes to train there when most of them were from Quebec.
There have been a lot of dubious decisions such as these, and I am not talking about the place French occupies in events. Even in events where they are trying to make a public show French is forgotten. Imagine what is going on in the wings.
There are places in the world that are more open to Quebec's having its own delegations at certain sporting events, and I would like to see Canada being more open. Would it not be just fine to see Canada and Quebec competing in the finals of an international hockey tournament? It would be extraordinary and something else.
When these same professionals were on strike and organized hockey tournaments before the start of the season, they established regional groups very different from our Canadian political groups. There was a team from Quebec, and it was great to see the game. It was also great for once to watch our professionals not play for money, because they were on strike at that point. The competition was really interesting.
The government should, among other things, increase its financial involvement with all the federations. There are currently a number of sport federations that are not even funded. How can they be expected to develop and to help athletes? There should be a review of all of them.
The selection of those federations that are currently getting help is highly questionable. Several need support but are not getting it. The government should quickly look at this issue. This was in fact one of the subcommittee's recommendations, but the government did not follow up on it.
I congratulate the hon. member for Longueuil for raising this issue today, as the hon. member for Rimouski—Mitis did before. I hope this debate will at least have the effect of reviving the report of the Subcommittee on the Study of Sport in Canada, which had been shelved. When I say that it was shelved I am being positive. Indeed, for all I know, it may well have been thrown into the garbage. Let us hope for the best, that the government will dig it out and implement a number of recommendations included in it.
Many people are actively involved in amateur sport and are expecting positive developments and signals. At a time when professional sport is becoming less appealing to many people who enjoy watching sport, this is a good opportunity to promote amateur sport.
It is somewhat disconcerting to ordinary people to see professional sport millionaires sometimes drag their feet and not perform as well as expected.
Amateur athletes do not have that luxury. When we attend a baseball game we may see a player earning $4 million or $5 million performing poorly. An amateur athlete cannot afford not to turn in a good performance during a competition because, unless he meets the very high standards he needs to qualify, he may lose the little support he has from sponsors, as well as from the government. He cannot afford to make any mistakes if he wants to survive in his sport.
I have a much greater respect for amateur athletes than for some professional athletes. We are all proud of Gaétan Boucher, Myriam Bédard and Sylvie Fréchette. Canadians of whom we are proud include swimmers Alex Bauman and Victor Davis, who projected a positive image and did Quebec and Canada proud.
One danger is that the government will simply see this debate as an opportunity for political visibility. It would be just like the Minister of Canadian Heritage to want to tattoo a maple leaf on the best athletes' foreheads to make sure that Canada is visible at competitions.
That is not the goal. The goal is to support athletes. Instead of conducting propaganda campaigns, as she did with the flag, the minister should provide funding for the daily expenses of these people so that they have a decent income while they are training, so that their passion for what they do will not be fettered. Let us agree: what we need is not a flag campaign, not money for visibility, not money for the government, but money that will go to athletes. If we keep that as a goal we will be on the right track.
In conclusion, I would like to move an amendment to the main motion moved by the member for Longueuil. I move:
That the motion be amended by adding after the word “and” the following: “immediately”.
We are moving this amendment because we want action now, not commitments in principle saying that the government will study 50 or so proposals at some distant date. We want action now and that is why we are adding the word immediately to the main motion.