Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a few comments, and I will not take too much time. The purpose of the bill to increase activity among young people or anybody for that matter is well-intended. It is important that we do that.
However, if we are looking at using the tax system to promote amateur sports, why should we not look broad based tax relief for families? The Conservative Party is working on that. If we give tax relief across the board in substantive amounts to all families, then they can make the choice. The member from the government side who just spoke said that some people get involved in music or theatre and some get involved in sports. There are all kinds of activities that people can get into to round out their lives.
To target in on sports and to offer tax relief or tax credits for the amounts spent for enrolling our children is the wrong way to go to achieve what the member wants to achieve. We should do it through tax relief for all families.
In my personal instance, my children both played sports, and that seems like a long time ago. Also my daughter took music lessons. Therefore, where do we have the saw-off? A lot of the sports in which my children were involved were through high school and through the education system. Thank goodness, because when my son got out of hockey, it was getting to be pretty expensive. This is what I think the hon. member is trying to get at. We need to give some help for people to be involved. However, the travelling, the equipment and some of the other things that went along with it were far more expensive than signing up for the year.
If we are to be serious about promoting health and wellness, there are other ways to do it. I remember years ago when the participaction program was in place. That was something to which we all paid attention. There were commercials which promoted walking so far every day, or getting involved in other ways, or improving lifestyles through better eating habits or whatever. It was information that went out to Canadians in a regular fashion, and I think a lot of people paid attention to that.
If we are serious about offering families an opportunity to improve their children's activity in sports, let us do it on a broad based tax relief basis. Let us give the money back to the families. We should not take it from them in the first place through the tax system. Then they can make the choices that they want to put their children into whatever activity, whether it is amateur sport, theatre or music. There are so many things to do for our children that if families had a few more bucks to enrol them in some of these other issues, then I think everybody would be better off.