Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Palliser is a former sports journalist and has been following sports for many years when he was a newspaper writer following national hockey and so on. Along the same vein as the points he was making, I wonder if he would comment on an issue from my riding in Winnipeg, something we gave a lot of thought to?
The point I raise is the general public's view of professional sports. He refers to the sports elite, the sports industry and the lack of attention to the development of amateur sport. When we lost our Winnipeg Jets hockey team in Winnipeg the public was so horrified at the prospect of losing the team that it agreed to take an equity position in the team and subsidize the losses of the team so it would stay in Winnipeg.
People were very emotional. We had a rally at the corner of Portage and Main with 10,000 people. Eight year old children brought their piggy banks and gave them to the owner Barry Shenkarow asking him to save the Jets and saying that they would do anything and pay anything.
The public picked up the losses. The first year was not bad, we lost $2 million and we could kind of justify shelling out $2 million from the public purse to keep the economy of the Winnipeg Jets in Winnipeg. The next year we lost $14 million. That was getting a little stiff. The next year the Winnipeg Jets lost $32 million. Here we were closing down inner city hockey rinks and wading pools for children to play and be active in because we could not afford them, yet we could afford to subsidize millionaire hockey players with the Winnipeg Jets.
Would the hon. member see the parallel that I am drawing here? There is too much attention toward the elite of sport and not enough attention toward the real issue of getting young people active and encouraging a new generation of kids into sports.