Evidence of meeting #55 for Canadian Heritage in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was coaches.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Moore
That's fine. We usually leave a little time for opening comments; then we go into a round of questions and answers.
Mr. Showers, do you have any opening remarks that you want to make?
4:30 p.m.
Head Coach for ten years and under, Lac St-Louis Swimming Association, Beaconsfield Bluefins Swim Club
I wanted to see what Tim was going to say. He covered a lot of it. As he said, it's a family-run organization.
Bluefins is not the only club I've coached at. Some of the clubs in the area are run a little differently. They have a city influence and are city-run clubs.
We have a little more than 160 swimmers at the club.
I followed the same sort of path as Tim. I started coaching around the age of 15, both indoor and outdoor, and then always did it on the side. I wasn't always a career coach, but then a couple of years ago I started career coaching.
That's about it.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Moore
Thank you both for your opening remarks.
We will begin now our rounds of questions and answers. These are turns of seven minutes.
We'll begin with Mr. Calandra for seven minutes.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Thank you.
Thanks, guys.
Matt, can you guide me through how you started off and then how you became a coach?
As you're looking back, what opportunities might we have missed to get other people to look at coaching as a profession, and how do we go about training coaches? We've heard from a couple of witnesses that we should perhaps have something in the universities. It strikes me that we did a study on entertainment software—another industry about which we heard that we're not graduating enough people through universities and have to bring people from other parts of the world to do the work. We heard from witnesses earlier that they're bringing in coaches from other countries as well.
So the question is twofold: tell me your experiences—how you made that decision—and where we're lacking in opportunities so that we're failing to get people into this.
4:35 p.m.
Head Coach for ten years and under, Lac St-Louis Swimming Association, Beaconsfield Bluefins Swim Club
Okay.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Both of you can answer this, by the way, if we have time.
4:35 p.m.
Head Coach for ten years and under, Lac St-Louis Swimming Association, Beaconsfield Bluefins Swim Club
Where we are, it's pretty standard for kids who are already involved in the pool to be coming up. Swimming is pretty big in Quebec. We get a lot of kids who come through the swimming program, either in the summer or the winter. Usually those kids will end up becoming lifeguards, and it's always the lifeguards who have to coach as well in the summer. These are not separate jobs; you're coaching during the morning and you're lifeguarding during the afternoon.
So it's always the lifeguards coming up, but most of the lifeguards are either former swimmers—synchronized swimmers, or water polo players, or whatever it might be. We're really lucky in Quebec that we have the outdoor pool program. It really helps develop not only the athletes but also the coaches.
As to having something at the university level, I don't know whether I agree or disagree with it. I think one thing that's lacking in development of coaches is a program itself. In the NCCP program, at level 1 or level 2, before you hit level 3—people may agree with me or not—you don't really start to learn much; at levels 1 and 2 it's really just paperwork. You're in a classroom setting for maybe a weekend, and then you may have some hands-on for a weekend.
There's really not much being learned at the NCCP formal coaching certification clinics, in my opinion. The most I've ever learned as a coach is when shadowing with more experienced coaches for entire seasons. It's there that I think all the learning really takes place.
It's harder to retain coaches, I think mainly for financial reasons. Retaining coaches is really hard: there's not much pool time available for any club; every club has so many programs, they're all fighting for the same pool time. If you end up coaching 10 or 11 or 12 hours a week, even if your hourly wage is great you're still not going to be making enough to continue with it for a long time.
Speaking for myself, as I said, I am a career coach, but I have to coach four or five workouts a day just to be able to coach for a living.
I think a university program would be great, but I don't know how many people would follow it to completion, knowing that even if they go through a university program, the same world of coaching is waiting for them when they're finished. There's still going to be that financial problem there.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
4:35 p.m.
Competitive Swim Coach, Lac St-Louis Region Swimming Association, Beaconsfield Bluefins Swim Club
I wanted to say that I felt, when Matt was talking about the NCCP training program, that as swim coaches we're in a bit of a unique situation because we have to write a practice ahead of time. We're going to be dealing with 12 to 15 kids in the water. A lot of the level 1 NCCP talks about preparing a practice and having an emergency readiness plan, which for a swim coach and lifeguard is already inherent in the job. That's the situation I saw.
But similar to what Matt said, if you're mentoring with someone, if there's active learning going on through being with a career coach or a higher-level coach, that's really where the learning happens.
Concerning retention...I would add that every year the Bluefins go to a swim meet in Toronto, so Matt and I and our co-coaches of the 10-and-under program are there. Quebec has by far the youngest coaches there, because coaching a 10-and-under group in Ontario seems to be an option for a career, whereas in Quebec, as Matt said, we're coaching a group of kids three or four times a week, and there's no money in that to make a career. So whereas Matt is pursuing a career-coaching opportunity through different groups at the same time, that's not my career choice, basically because of what he's saying. I'd love to be able to be a permanent career coach, but it's just not in the cards, unless I want to move, and I don't really want to.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Do you often lose your elite athletes to the United States and to the college program there? It strikes me that even in the greater Toronto area there just aren't a lot of pools available. We're building a couple, with the Pan Am Games coming, but when you really look at it and look at our community centres, we build a lot of hockey rinks, but don't build a lot of pools.
Tell me whether we are losing our elite athletes. And you don't have to agree or disagree, but what are your thoughts on universities providing scholarships to maintain elite athletes?
4:40 p.m.
Head Coach for ten years and under, Lac St-Louis Swimming Association, Beaconsfield Bluefins Swim Club
I can say as a coach that this is the sort of career that you push for the kids, knowing that swimming is not a sport in which they're going to make thousands or millions of dollars and be able to continue it as a career. There is one swimmer in the history of swimming who has done it: Michael Phelps. He's one in, I don't know, 10 million. We're not going to see this again for a really long time. He's really the only one. He put swimming back on the map and made a really great living at it, but he is the only one—maybe one other guy.
As coaches, that's what we strive for. If we can get a swimmer to get a scholarship to a U.S. university or go to the Ivy League to get a free education, then it's absolutely worth it. If the Canadian universities were to offer the same thing, it would be a lot more interesting. We would maybe keep a lot more of our swimmers. We have many swimmers who will end up going to McGill, but they're paying Quebec resident fees, which are a lot less than what they would pay if they were coming from out of province. They're lucky in that sense.
Otherwise, it's really hard for kids to leave and go to university somewhere else. The financial burden is a lot. If there were scholarships, as you said, it would be really interesting.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
March 4th, 2013 / 4:40 p.m.
NDP
Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet NDP Hochelaga, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen.
You said that your club was made up of families and 160 students. Could you tell me what the boys to girls ratio is?
4:40 p.m.
Head Coach for ten years and under, Lac St-Louis Swimming Association, Beaconsfield Bluefins Swim Club
Usually, there are a lot more girls than boys. I don't know why. I would say about 80 or 90 girls and 60 or 70 boys.
4:40 p.m.
Head Coach for ten years and under, Lac St-Louis Swimming Association, Beaconsfield Bluefins Swim Club
Between 6 and 18 or 19 years old.
4:40 p.m.
Head Coach for ten years and under, Lac St-Louis Swimming Association, Beaconsfield Bluefins Swim Club
Yes.
4:40 p.m.
Head Coach for ten years and under, Lac St-Louis Swimming Association, Beaconsfield Bluefins Swim Club
No, it's the other way around.
4:40 p.m.
NDP
Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet NDP Hochelaga, QC
Do you know why there are fewer women coaches, but there are more girls than boys?
4:40 p.m.
Head Coach for ten years and under, Lac St-Louis Swimming Association, Beaconsfield Bluefins Swim Club
Honestly, I think it is just our club. In other clubs, even in the same sector, the ratio is more or less equal. I don't know why, but our club practically has men only.
4:40 p.m.
NDP
Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet NDP Hochelaga, QC
The kids in your club can be up to 18 years old. They are still at a rather advanced level, correct?
4:40 p.m.
Head Coach for ten years and under, Lac St-Louis Swimming Association, Beaconsfield Bluefins Swim Club
Yes.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet NDP Hochelaga, QC
Other people told us that, at the beginner level, there are more women coaches, but that, at higher levels, there are fewer women because they take care of their families and so on.
What could we do to encourage women to continue to work as coaches? My question is for either of you.