Denis Coderre

[Committees Of The House, May 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I seek the unanimous consent of the House to congratulate my colleague, who had a vision when he sat on the other side, now that he is in the government. I seek unanimous consent to congratulate him.

[Committees Of The House, May 16th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I want to congratulate the hon. member. I had a call from the people at the Guinness records and, never in the history of active politics has so much rubbish been heard in so short a time.

[Committees Of The House, May 16th, 2000]

Who would notice?

[Committees Of The House, May 16th, 2000]

Let's talk about last night.

[Amateur Sport, May 12th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question.

The Bloc Quebecois was pleased as well with our March 20 announcement. Of course, there have been problems. I have waited neither for the hon. member to put her question nor for the news in order to act on the problem.

I personally called the athletes who were having problems in this regard. I can say that as of May 9, at 8.45 p.m., all the cheques were in the mail, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

[Amateur Sport, May 3rd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her question.

Obviously, not only since the Minister of Canadian Heritage has been looking after sport but since yours truly has been doing so as well, we have worked extremely hard to ensure that sport in this country functions in both official languages.

I am currently establishing a national policy on sport, and I think that the sport community must be so pleased with the work we have done because we are being congratulated daily on it.

[Sports, May 2nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, last Friday our government showed once again that amateur sport is a priority for us.

We have invested an additional $5.2 million to help our olympic and paralympic athletes prepare in addition to those who often make a difference and are too often forgotten: our trainers. Funding has now increased from $8 million to $11 million.

Since the last budget our government invested $13 million more, and it is only the beginning. Once again we walk the talk.

[Citizenship Of Canada Act, March 23rd, 2000]

Not yet.

[Point Of Order, March 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I went a bit too far when I said that the official opposition did not view amateur sport as a priority.

I wish to apologize publicly because I know that members of the House have worked very hard, particularly on the subcommittee on the study of sport in Canada. I also wish to apologize to all opposition party members who might have been offended.

[Amateur Sport, March 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this question from this side of the House, since it appears not to be among the priorities of the opposition side.

I am pleased to announce today that we are aware of this problem and are responding to it. I have announced close to $60,000 in additional direction assistance to nearly 1,300 carded athletes, an increase of $5.4 million.

I have also announced an 80% increase to the funding of the national sports centres, which provide essential services to athletes and coaches. This represents an increase of $1.5 million.

Finally, we want to increase—