Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to thank my colleagues for stepping in and giving
some good comments here today. Unfortunately, I too did not get a chance to throw some comments when it was going around and we were dealing with the line entry on the supplementary estimates.
I’m actually gravely concerned. I come from the corporate environment and if I was a corporation listening in or even having a copy of these transcripts, I would be second guessing my community sponsorship program and my community involvement or my giving back. We’re clearly sending a really wrong message here.
As much as I like to embrace the ideology of a few here, I don’t believe this is what we refer to as a serious problem. A serious problem here is that we’ve dragged out a very genuine offer from a company for about the last hour and we’ve mentioned company names in this House, which I think is wrong. These company names, I have the highest degree of respect. We shouldn’t be bringing company names to the floor of the House, and for that I apologize for every company name that was brought forward.
The issue that we have before us as a motion is a motion of deletion, which is really, by purview, one of the few options we have as a committee, and I can understand that, but the concept that we’re trying to do here under the guise of use is bad and brand is bad, I’ve heard some pretty daunting words here today. I’ve heard the words undermine, demonize, influence the taxation. We’re painting corporate Canada like a villain, and I think that is a huge error on our part here. If I liken the fact that if the donor here today had a mission statement of, you know, say no to carbon footprint or let’s save a tree, would we be having the same argument here today? I don’t think we would be. Because we’re dealing with a company that happens to be in the oil business, all of a sudden now this is a bad thing.
Again, no disrespect to any company that may have those mission statements, but the thing is that, as someone who’s trying to make sense of all this here, it doesn’t compute. We’re saying no to technology. We’re saying let’s play with a stick, and let’s ignore the modernization which has put us here in this very room and has made the Northwest Territories devolve. We’re saying no to evolution in a general sense, and I think, really, when it comes to early childhood development, there are going to be many schools of thought.
Growing up and going to university, I can tell you, I had professors. You’d have one professor say one thing and you’d have another professor saying a completely different thing. The beautiful thing about being academic is everyone’s got an opinion. Everybody. And you’ve got to learn to live with it and respect those opinions. No one’s really wrong and no one’s really right. It’s just that there are different opinions.
But, really, what we’re boiling down to is a company has come forward, they have offered to modernize our way of doing business. They’ve offered to partner with us with early childhood development. We have been involved with companies forever in the Northwest Territories, and yes, I liken this to the same thing as doing sports. You know, our youth ambassadors, sporting events, scholarships. Companies donate to many of our scholarships that involve our children. I grew up with a block of wood and if I had the choice between a block of wood and a tablet, I’d choose a tablet. The farm made the person I am today, but really, at the end of the day, I don’t see a huge issue here. Can we have some rules around corporate sponsorship and a policy? Absolutely. But today is not the day for that conversation, and I’m willing to have that debate when the time comes, but not at the expense of jeopardizing what I think is a very genuine offer and I do have good faith, and great faith, that we’re going to move forward in the right way with this sponsor in making sure that, yes, there’s no subliminal messages being broadcast time and time again.
Growing up with my two sons, we’ve had tablets around the house and stuff like that. These kids pick up stuff very fast. It’s amazing and I couldn’t even imagine raising my kids without technology in today’s day and age and giving them a fighting chance to have the jobs. At the end of the day, I’ve got to make sure that my kids are as competitive as any other kid down south and given the right tools and the same tools, and we’re dealing with impoverished communities here, we’re dealing with communities that do not have. This allows have, which I don’t know how we can say no to have. It just does not make any sense at the end of the day.
As much as, again, I respect my colleague’s opinion, like I said, everybody has got one. At the end of the day, block of wood versus a tablet, I choose a tablet. Thank you.