Madam Speaker, I thank my colleagues on all sides for taking part in this debate. What takes place next is a simple process. It is about whether this House has the courage to tackle organized crime in the most significant legislation that will be proposed in this House of Commons for this session of Parliament. It is clean and simple. We send this to committee to be studied, examined, and brought back here for a final vote.
Let us look at the facts carefully. The bill was already in previous Parliaments. It went through with Liberal, Conservative, and NDP support. It was stymied in the Senate and had to re-emerge here. With about $10 billion going to organized crime per year, it has cost us over $20 billion. As it has stalled in the Senate for three years, that is $50 billion going to organized crime.
If the bill does not make it this time and we do not get it to committee, it becomes another four years, unless it is introduced by the government, having to eat crow. What do we have in the meantime? We have a $50-billion gift to organized crime. Organized crime will get the biggest single corporate tax cut from the government. They will get the resources.
Sports betting across this globe is a $2-trillion annual business. Canada is a laggard in terms of accountability. Very little of that is recovered by governments. About 80% is going to organized crime.
If we vote for the bill right now, we give it a chance to go to committee. Let us hear from the experts that are for it. Let us hear it from the experts that are against it. Let us hear about one sentence in the Criminal Code that, in my view, would increase accountability, tourism, and jobs and would give us more reason to tackle other organized crimes, because we would unplug them from their single most profitable source of revenue. That would mean new revenue for health care, education, gaming addiction, and other elements.
I am being mocked and heckled by a Conservative over there, but that is okay. They do not take it seriously, but I do, because those revenues are being asked for and supported by the Province of Ontario and by the official opposition in Ontario.
This gives the provinces the opportunity to choose, if they want, to go into this type of possibility. They have the infrastructure, such as the Alcohol and Gaming Commission, which has accountability and the ability to put this out to market if they choose to do it.
For example, if Ontario wants to bet on one event one time, they can do that, monitor it, and provide the accountability and oversight that so many people want.
I can still hear my colleague, and I would ask him to maybe speak to the bill.