National Roundtables on Future High Performance Sport Funding

TORONTO , ONTARIO

April 14, 2004

Chair:

The Honourable Dr. Carolyn Bennett
Minister of State (Public Health)

Main Themes

• Target sports, which perform, but then let NSOs, run their own sports. The ‘cookie-cutter' approach to the terms and conditions attached to funding should be changed and made more flexible based on the individual NSOs needs.
• Funding support also needs to be directed to athletes below the national team level (La Relève)
• Athletes and coaches go together - they must both be funded equally. Some coaches currently are not only volunteers but are also spending their own money to coach at international and domestic competitions. Other countries are recruiting Canadian coaches because we cannot pay them enough.
• We need to target the gap between the provincial team level and the national team level - especially in team sports. Athletes need support on their way to the top and not only once they've reached it.
• There needs to be a separate evaluation system for team sports and individual sports.
• Athletes are essentially employees of a huge system yet they (as well as the coaches) get paid the least. This is a systematic devaluation of an athlete's worth in Canada .
• National Sport Centres should be based on the American model - like in Lake Placid , Colorado Springs, etc. with residential centralization and services (medical, paramedical, psychological).
• We need to create a culture of excellence in sport in Canada .
• The National Sport System needs coordination at the national level (for example the Sport Review Process), but also at the Federal-Provincial Government level. The two levels of government need to collaborate on the National Sport System for it to be successful.
• We do not have enough high performance sport facilities in Canada .
• We need more investment in sport science and technology.
• Sport Canada should become an agency and not part of a government department.
• Any new funding must be over the long term - not a one-time injection