Madam Speaker, with regard to registering youth in organized sport, I will share some statistics with my colleague across the way, and I know the government has an aversion to actual facts and statistics. However, if we look at participation rates in our country over the last 12 years, there was absolutely no discernible increase in participation rates after the tax credit came forward for registering our sons and daughters in sport programs. After 2008-09, the increases were pretty much the same. The one year in the last 12 years that we had an increase in participation rates was in 2003 and that was because our men and women's hockey teams won gold medals at Salt Lake City. The increase in female participation in sport spiked because of that.
We on the opposition benches are trying to say that if we look at targeted investments in our athletes, our facilities, coaching and create some heroes and role models for young people, then we would get increased participation numbers and more people involved.
When I sat down with my wife and we decided to put our boys in hockey, we did not say that we would do this but there was no tax credit, so to heck with it. It does not enter into the whole thought process, but targeted investments work and that is where the government misses when it comes to encouraging more youth to get involved in sport.