Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on Valentine's Day today, I would like to tell a story of a Hay River athlete whose heart was broken by the process by which participants qualify to attend the upcoming Arctic Winter Games. Little Johnny comes home all excited about going to the Arctic Winter Games. He is an excellent athlete in his sport and his family is supportive. His parents complete the Arctic Winter Games application form and remit the registration fee for trials. He also begins the process of applying for the required passport. He applied early as he has been clearly notified that passport documents had to be received by January 6th in order to participate in the Arctic Winter Games.

Johnny participates in the regionals and he does well. He continues to attend practices and becomes even more excited. Then Johnny finds out that the issuance of his birth certificate from vital statistics is being delayed which, in turn, delays his passport from being received by the deadline that Sport North has announced to all athletes. At this point, he knows he cannot go to the games, so his parents decide it would not be sensible to pay the $100 fee to play in the territorials when it was predetermined that he could not go to the Arctic Winter Games without a passport. This is where his dream ended, but his story is not over because then little Johnny now reads in the newspaper that passports are not required to travel to Alaska for the Arctic Winter Games.

Mr. Speaker, this is not fair. How do we explain to a young person who has prepared for his or her sport for several months and sometimes waited years to participate in a competition like the Arctic Winter Games that, although you applied in plenty of time, your paperwork wasn't going to be completed in time and you can pay $100 to play in the territorials but you can't attend the Arctic Winter Games even if you win? Then, less than a few weeks later, when it is too late to qualify in the territorials, too late to be accepted to attend the Arctic Winter Games, now we are told that none of these documents are mandatory.

Mr. Speaker, what is the message to the young athletes who have been so disappointed? Who is going to apologize to them? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause