The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Flin Flon City Council isn't sitting on the bench as Ottawa ponders a proposal to help SJHL teams, voting Tuesday to join the line-up of municipalities backing Bill C-285. The bill, which will be further debated in the House of Commons this spring, would exempt from income taxes athletes who are paid $8,000 or less by a not-for-profit organization such as an SJHL team. The Canada Revenue Agency has informed the league that it considers players to be team employees, a decision that forced franchises to hand over EI and CPP premiums on billeting and player allowances. City council voted unanimously to support the passage of the bill, which Mayor Dennis Ballard said would help thicken the ice on which SJHL clubs like the Flin Flon Bombers skate. "Certainly I support it," said the mayor. "Whether that's because it's a really good thing or whether it's because I'm a hockey fan, I can't tell you for sure. But I do know that the junior clubs out there are seriously struggling, not just Flin Flon's, everybody's." Council's support follows the lead of councils in some other SJHL communities. SJHL President Laury Ryan said he appreciates any backing of the bill. "I think it's a great thing because, you know, it's really acknowledging the importance of the teams," he said from his Wilcox, Sask. office, "not just for community pride, but as vehicles in the communities to create economic growth." Ryan can't understand why the government would want to make things harder for the dozen SJHL clubs. "You've got non-profit groups trying to do something for the communities that they exist in," he said. "Every dime that comes into the teams goes right back into the communities. "In many cases, the teams are economic vehicles for the communities, including this newspaper. The fact that there's a team and you're reporting on it probably sells a ton of newspapers." David Anderson, the Saskatchewan MP who introduced Bill C-285 as a Private Members' Bill, shares that sentiment. His concerns were recently compounded when the governing Liberals came out as the only party opposed to the bill after it was first debated in the House of Commons last month. "This whole bill actually rises out of an ethic that this Liberal government has," said Anderson in a strongly-worded press release. "That ethic being, basically, that it has never seen a dollar it did not want to tax." Anderson's release stated that SJHL "teams were forced, by Canada Revenue Agency, to back-pay EI and CPP premiums on billeting and accommodation expenses paid on behalf of the players." Ryan, the SJHL president, hopes "common sense will prevail" and the bill will pass.
