Canadian Heritage Committee on May 31st, 2012

[Christopher Overholt]

I would agree with any programs that provide more opportunity for kids to be attached to sport and to get involved earlier in life. In the sport community, in the family, we talk about not just high-performance sport, we talk about the continuum that is the development of athletes in the country, and it starts in the playground. It's often referred to as a playground-to-podium mentality in the development of an athlete. The old adage that it takes a village is absolutely true in the development of a high-performance athlete in this country. It starts at that level. So we would be supportive of any programs that initiate placing kids where they can try sport and see how it works for them.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

If you have a volunteer coach, you have a facility, and you have equipment, that keeps registration fees down. Keeping registration fees down makes that tax credit that's been put in place more effective, because it's not a huge tax credit. So there should be a push toward having those components all rolled into one program, because that would involve more young people in this country in healthy activity, and help us defray some of these health care costs that childhood obesity is going to lead to in future generations. It would be a very effective direction for us to go in.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Pierre Nantel]

Thank you, Mr. Armstrong.

Matthew Dubé now has the floor.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to come back to the issue of including athletes in planning within Olympic committees. Ms. Crooks, based on how you talked about it, my understanding is that this was a relatively new approach. Could you tell us more about the importance of including athletes in planning?

As Mr. Armstrong said earlier, this is significant, as it is not only money that is important, but also the way that money is spent. And who better to talk about this issue than athletes, the people who are the main targets of that funding?

Could you elaborate on that? How can we include athletes in planning more in order to improve programs in the future?

[Charmaine Crooks]

Thank you very much for your question.

There are many areas where athletes are involved. If you look at the international level, there is an IOC Athletes' Commission, on which the current IOC member from Canada is Beckie Scott. I was a member of that commission for 15 years. My term on that has just ended.

From the Canadian point of view, we have several athletes commissions in Canada. The Canadian Olympic Committee has a very robust athletes council. We also have a committee of Olympians Canada, which represents the 4,000 alumni Olympians. We also have AthletesCAN in Canada. Also, a lot of the national sport federations have athletes committees.

If you look at VANOC, we had an athletes council related to that to give advice to the organizing committee, typically around sport. The Pan American Games has a very robust athlete advisory council as well. Our Canadian Olympic Committee has, on our governance structure, athletes who are integrated into that as well as representation from the alumni. From time to time, as far as working groups are concerned, the athletes are called on quite a bit to be involved, not just from a ceremonial point of view, but also for developing and implementing policy.

Regarding the whole idea of athletes' involvement, in many ways the International Olympic Committee has taken a lead role in that by encouraging the 204 national Olympic committees to include athletes on their executives. In Canada, we're very well represented on our executive as far as the athletes are concerned.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Overholt, would you like to add anything?

[Christopher Overholt]

Thank you, Monsieur Dubé.

I would say, as has been offered a couple of times already, if athletes are at the core of our brand, then naturally you want to have that experience involved in your business, and we do. So separate from the things that Charmaine has mentioned, certainly Veronica Brenner, Isabelle Charest, and Tania Vincent are all key members of our staff at the Canadian Olympic Committee.

In more recent times, Mark Tewksbury is our chef de mission for London, and we have already announced Steve Podborski for Russia.

So from a planning and execution standpoint, both every day in our business and as we prepare for games, we have some of the most profiled Canadian athletes involved in just about everything we do today.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Thank you.

That's fairly important, and I am happy to hear it.

Before my time runs out, I would like to come back to something you mentioned in the beginning, Mr. Pocock. You talked about the importance of Paralympic Games in encouraging people with various disabilities to become involved in sports. Athletes need infrastructure and tools to achieve an elite level in order to compete at the Paralympic Games.

Given that you come from the birthplace of the Paralympic Games, what do you think about the current situation in terms of encouraging participation in the that event?

[Andrew John Pocock]

Thank you very much.

I think they probably need all the help and encouragement and coaching and facilities that able-bodied athletes need, and then some. One is starting a little further back, I think, with disabled people.

The key reasons we're emphasizing the Paralympics, as I tried to say a little earlier on, is to do two things. One is to expand the horizons of possibility for disabled people. Many of them would simply not consider the prospect of competing in sport, at any level. Seeing this on television, perhaps having contact with some of the Paralympic athletes, will expand that horizon a bit. Second, and equally important, is it will give broader society a better sense of what disabled athletes, and indeed disabled people, can do. We hope that the chemistry between those two things will give a bit more motivation for the disabled to come forward.

Sport is such a good avenue. It not only contributes to physical well-being, but it involves them in teams, in community. It breaks the isolation that so often surrounds disabled people in their lives. They live in isolated apartments and this brings you into a broader community. Also, it's making people more aware, perhaps making coaches more aware, that it isn't just able-bodied people who respond well to discipline and instruction; anyone can.

We do hope that the Paralympics will be a showcase for what disabled athletes can do. As I say, I've seen up close and personally the quite extraordinary physical condition that self-discipline and hard training allows disabled athletes to reach. It's a catalyst, as well. It's not just a display, but a catalyst, both for the disabled to come forward themselves, and for people to reach out a bit more and provide some more facilities.

Thank you for the question.

[The Vice-Chair, NDP, Pierre Nantel]

Thank you very much, Your Excellency. This was an amazing opportunity for us to take stock of the situation involving our athletes who are going to London, your home.

This concludes our meeting. On behalf of all the members of this committee, I would like to sincerely thank each and every one of the witnesses who have joined us this morning.

We will now suspend the meeting for about a minute, as we will move on to committee business in camera.

We have to say goodbye to you. I want to thank you once again for joining us.

[Marcel Aubut]

Thank you, everyone. Have a good day.

[The committee continued in camera]