Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank my colleagues for all the very interesting and good comments I have received here. I think it demonstrates that there are a lot of questions and it is a serious issue. I think there are underlying issues here that we are discussing. How appropriate is it for government to partner with large corporations, especially oil corporations and so on in dealing with our youngest? That’s what we’re talking about here. We’ve heard about sponsoring teams in the Arctic Winter Games. No, no, we’re talking about early childhood development here. Illiteracy is very strong.

I think Ms. Bisaro underlined a number of the fundamental aspects of this and so I think it’s very clear that corporations have influenced the tax programs in this country. Not so long ago our revenues were typically 50/50. Personal income tax, corporate tax has changed dramatically in favour of the corporations and so on. So it’s not surprising that government is very open to corporate partnerships and not having a close look at the impacts of those on our youngest and most vulnerable citizens. So I appreciate the call for the government to do that. I think that’s appropriate and was one of the intents in doing this.

I think this program has been delayed in ways that are related to sponsorship. Of course, these are the sorts of prices we pay and the public never hears about as we take on these partnerships.

I believe most people in Cabinet might know that the so-called free trade agreements that Canada has with other countries, we have reservations on

the involvement of corporate delivery in education and health. To the extent that we start to move outside of that practice and use corporate delivery and sponsorships, we become very vulnerable to blowing those reservations out of the water and all of a sudden our entire educational/health systems and all business becomes open to global corporations from elsewhere coming in and removing business from our local businesses and so on.

In fact, just this weekend, Mr. Chair, on the national news, the Northwest Territories was solely pointed out and profiled as partnering quite often with big business in our educational and health programs. That is of concern not only to myself and some of my colleagues but to many of the citizens of the Northwest Territories and I wouldn’t doubt Canada as well.

So, it’s clear that the Ministers have not realized what the impacts of screen time were on our youngest children, nor of branding. It was mentioned that it was only one example provided, but obviously there is a large body of literature on that that can be referred to and brought into debate, if the Ministers choose to take the suggestions of myself and my colleagues to develop a policy on this.

Minister Miltenberger’s reference that he assumes there are no subliminal things going on here, again, shows a naiveté because there certainly is. These corporations didn’t get the way they are without knowing full well what they are doing and they have a huge amount of research on this. They know exactly how to take advantage of subliminal advertising. That’s what this is all based on. As the Minister of ECE has said, the logos will be front and centre 24/7, 365 days a year and will have the desired impact. So we can’t be naïve when we’re dealing with this.

I grant that this is a difficult debate. I hope that rather than just having our opinions, that we will go out and do the research and try to get informed so we can base it on the best information that we have.

Very quickly, will these young families be provided with information that highlights the impact of screen time on children, some of the health issues that are very clear and that I have mentioned in my statements today, and the Minister could certainly delineate through research with his own staff. Will the Minister be committing to provide that information with this technology, given that our young children today are facing more and more of these sorts of distractions from the sorts of activities that we know are healthy? Can I get that commitment from the Minister? Thank you.