Mr. Speaker, I am not sure the member will have the answers for my questions but if he cannot provide the answers, perhaps he could provide an undertaking to provide the answers.
The questions are about the Canadian Olympic program. We are talking about our elite athletes and the remuneration they receive by way of payment and free accommodation, room and board and so on. What is the CCRA's position in regard to the tax treatment of those benefits?
The other question I would like an answer to is whether the CCRA decision to tax Saskatchewan junior hockey league teams is going to be applied to all 130 plus junior A hockey teams across the nation.
The Saskatchewan junior hockey league is an old and strong tradition in Saskatchewan. I began following the league in the mid-1950s, which kind of dates my age. There were some pretty good players back in those days: “Mr. Goalie” Glenn Hall, Rod Berenson, Terry Harper, Dave Balon, Orland Kurtenbach, Marshall Johnston who later became the general manager of the Ottawa Senators, Autry Erickson, and many other players.
Over the years the league has evolved. It is no longer a major junior hockey league. It has become a small market developmental league that emphasizes education and development of hockey skills.
The important relationship in that league is the relationship between the parents who entrust their sons to league teams on some pretty clear understandings.
The first is that players will be billeted into solid homes in a community and the teams and billets will become the parents and guardians of those boys while they play hockey in that community.
The second understanding is that there is a strong emphasis on education, schooling and skill development in hockey.
Third, the players will retain their full amateur status with the hope of receiving a full athletic scholarship to a major American university or college.
It is also an understanding that teams will provide the room and board and the expense money that the players would normally receive if they stayed at home to receive their schooling with their parents in their home communities.
In the history of the league the CCRA has never treated that relationship between the teams, the players and the parents as some sort of employer-employee relationship. By adopting this position now, the federal government is undermining the special relationship that exists between the parents, the teams and the players. The decision, in addition to casting doubt on the eligibility of the players to receive athletic scholarships, undermines the hockey dreams of these people.
The Saskatchewan junior hockey league is about dreams. Hockey is Canada's official national sport. The decision of the CCRA is all about destroying a whole host of dreams and a Canadian institution, amateur junior hockey.
The government should be about promoting Canadian dreams and not about destroying them. In this case--