National Roundtables on Future High Performance Sport Funding

SHERBROOKE , QUÉBEC

April 14, 2004

Chair:

The Honourable Hélène C. Scherrer
Minister of Canadian Heritage

Main Themes

• Lack of money for sports in Canada , to develop high performance athletes, important shortage to develop La Relève .
• Ensure a better partnership between F-P/T, NSOs/PSOs, and university sports.
• Athlete Assistance Program (AAP) should take into account athletes' needs, increase the annual stipend given to athletes and include support to La Relève Athletes; sponsored athletes should prove their needs before being eligible to the AAP.
• Canada is losing its best coaches because of inadequate funding, the profession is not well supported and is not recognized; many coaches are basically volunteers, and the majority of paid coaches cannot live on their salary alone and need to find part-time work.
• Need a shared and increased funding Program to ensure a larger payroll to hire more coaches and offer higher salaries; to be able to hire coaches for La Relève (SC, COC, Universities, others and possibly private sector contributions)
• Target funding for some sports according to well-defined standards, as long as summer sports are not disadvantaged relative to winter sports (Vancouver 2010).
• Ensure participation at all levels of partnerships (governments, sport stakeholders) and new funding is part of an overall long-term plan with clear goals according to the 4 pillars of the Canadian Sport Policy . Adopt a global vision that goes beyond the 2010 Vancouver Games.
• Create an Infrastructure Program to enhance obsolete sport facilities, build new ones and allocate the appropriate operating and maintenance budgets.
• Increase the number and quality of national and international sporting events in Canada , which benefit the development of high performance sport.
• Improve services to athletes through national centres.
• Increase the accountability of NSO/PSO managers for their management of sport budgets and programs.
• Create a Development Program to improve the competencies of national and provincial sport organizations managers.
• The Government of Canada must target funding for sports with good potential for performance and excellence and not just for medals.... Develop standards on performance potential to clearly identify La Relève athletes and appropriate funding for these programs.
• Target funding on the basis of current realities, based on an overall plan for developing athletes while considering the potential for future performance.
• Foster the creation of national training centres specific to sports with the required funding to manage them.
• Seriously foster the development of coaches based on skills, especially for developing athletes from the grassroots to the La Relève level.
• Improve representation of coaches at the national level and recognize coaching as a respectable and viable profession.
• Increase funding for national senior and La Relève teams, including Paralympics athletes.
• Paralympic Sports are not sports of mass participation, they have very specific needs within a well-structured environment, therefore they have a more expensive athlete/coach ratio than normal high performance sport; they need a better integration system to recruit athletes and give them the same recognition and services as those received by regular athletes; increase funding for athletes and coaches; improve accessibility to national training centres; foster research in paralympic sports.
• Foster a coordinated and cooperative approach with all government partners and sport stakeholders; develop a better interaction and integration; ensure continuity in sport development.
• Improve on the accountability of National and Provincial Sport Organizations, and of Major Games Organizations.
• Increase sport research.
• Offer tax incentives (tax credits and other) for athletes, families, the sponsoring community; for building and enhancing sport facilities, buying sport equipment, buying and training horses at the national equestrian team level.
• Ensure funding support the maintenance of current and future Olympic facilities.
• Funding must be decided under the guidance of “ investors” and with a team of specialists able to establish funding standards, evaluate funding requests and recommend funding levels.
• Currently, Sport Canada does a good work regarding funding.
• A National Sport Organization must have the skills to decide and manage its sport programs, while remaining accountable to investors.
• There was a consensus to the effect that the additional $10 M announced by the Minister of State (Sport) would be sufficient to have a positive impact on the development of high performance sport in Canada . The Government of Canada has the necessary information to establish the required additional funding levels to realistically meet the needs high performance sport while respecting the overall objectives of the Canadian Sport Policy.
• Establish a Sport lottery (for example in the Ukraine , Italy )