Honourable senators, I rise to speak very briefly to Bill S-269, which is a bill put forward by the sponsor, Senator Deacon. I had the pleasure of chairing the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications while we did a brief study on the bill. Of course, I am a friendly critic of the bill. I support the bill wholeheartedly.

We realized in the course of the study — and I think any one of us who watches, particularly, sports, as I do, a fair amount, which is still on television because even though younger generations are shifting off TV these days and, as we’ve heard, traditional broadcasters in the past are suffering, those boomers like myself who still follow a Sunday football game or a Saturday night hockey game —

I’m there. I’m on the border. My kids call me “boomer” every time they walk pass the family room and I’m watching sports on TV.

Any one of us who does gets the impression half the time that instead being in our living room or family room, we’re in the middle of a casino in Vegas or Atlantic City and surrounded by bookies because we’ve been bombarded over and over again by the same ad, usually a very glamorous one, of people glorifying, of course, sports betting.

Of course, we always knew there was a risk of that a few years ago when we passed this piece of legislation. What we did learn in the course of our study is that there have been some social ramifications. The only concern I have is that there is a tendency for people to think it is a widespread problem and that it touches many Canadians, that sports-betting addiction has become a huge problem and almost at a crisis level.

The truth of the matter is we weren’t able to ascertain that wholeheartedly. At least I wasn’t. I wasn’t able to get a concrete statistic in terms of how many people are not using sports betting for entertaining purposes in a moderate, responsible fashion, but clearly there were enough advocates saying that even if the percentage is 3% or 4% or 5% or 7% or 10%, there are a number of people who did get addicted to sports betting. More often than not, it’s people who don’t have the means and capacity to afford it, and, of course, it spirals into other social problems, like family problems, financial problems and so on and so forth. Particularly of concern to me is that it does, I think, disproportionally touch young people.

In my life, I’ve had experiences of this with personal friends of mine at a very young age. We were all sports fanatics, but a couple of my friends got into the addiction of sports betting at a time when, of course, they were doing it in some nefarious circles, in dark lanes and with people who were not so nice. At least now you take your credit card or your bank account, and you empty it out. You go online, get carried away and place a bet.

It has become a problem. It has come to our attention. The bill proposed by Senator Marty Deacon is, I think, a reasonable bill. It doesn’t address all the problems that we’re facing, but I think it’s a step forward. I think we should continue to be vigilant. I think we should also start asking ourselves this question: Why is it that sports teams in Canada, in particular, have become so addicted to revenue from gambling? I think there is a wider, broader problem that also needs to be drilled down, and we should try to figure out the details of that.

I am also concerned because more than a year ago we had the Trudeau government telling us if we pass Bill C-11 and we do it urgently, we will solve all problems in broadcasting and it will start creating a new flow of revenue for the traditional broadcasters and save them from the difficulties they’re facing. But if you watch a number of broadcasts now from the traditional broadcasters, in a one-hour segment you basically see nothing but sports-betting ads, which is also of concern. That has to be looked at, and we must address why it’s happening because, like anything else, I believe particularly when young people are being bombarded with ads that are sensationalizing certain types of behaviour, there is a tendency for those who have addictive tendencies to be drawn to it.

I’m standing on my feet now to fully support the bill by Senator Deacon. I think we should go forward with it. I think we should be vigilant and keep our eyes open going forward of what else we need to do as parliamentarians to address the problem. Senator Deacon, congratulations on your bill. I hope all of our colleagues endorse it. Thank you very much.