Thank you.
It's a pleasure to be here to share with you information on the Canadian Paralympic Committee and our athletes and coaches who are preparing for London. I'm the CEO. I proudly represent the 150 athletes and 40 coaches who will be representing our country in London in less than 90 days.
Paralympic athletes are athletes with a physical disability. Many of them have been victims of accidents or other events that have caused them to not be able to participate in able-bodied sport and have an option to carry on their career in sports or to carry on in their active lifestyles through parasport and Paralympic sport.
I want to share with you that my story really begins in Vancouver two years ago, with the Vancouver Paralympic Winter Games. Canadian Paralympic athletes were not particularly well known among Canadians at that point in time, until the games and the broadcast of the games. Fourteen million Canadians watched our Paralympic athletes compete in sledge hockey, cross-country skiing, and numerous other events.
Our success in Vancouver was outstanding. We placed third in the world, which for us is a significant accomplishment. It also brought us a great deal of awareness and pride. I think all of you will recall that coming out of Vancouver, all Canadians had a greater sense of pride and confidence, and realized that they could go for gold in whatever endeavour they chose.
Vancouver has been very good to the Canadian Paralympic Committee. As a result of that, our funding from the Government of Canada has increased. That funding has enabled us as an organization to secure private sector funds and corporate funding. We've made a commitment to Sport Canada and the Government of Canada that we will match their funds within the next two years. Right now, we get 65% of our funds from the Government of Canada and about 35% from the private sector. We are very grateful for that funding. It's enabled us and our athletes to compete at the top level in the world.
To give you an example, one of our athletes, Michelle Stilwell, is a wheelchair racer along the lines of Chantal Petitclerc, who I'm sure you've heard of, one of Canada's top Paralympians, having won five gold medals in Beijing. Recently we were able to provide Michelle with a new wheelchair, the highest-end, state-of-the-art racing wheelchair that you could buy in the world. Since she got that new chair, which is a construction of carbon fibre and titanium, Michelle has set three world records in her lead-up to the Paralympic Games. This is an incredible accomplishment for this young lady as we go forward. Just to give you an idea, a chair like that for a top racer in the world is worth somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000.
We also, on the other end of that spectrum, are investing $500,000 annually in parasport equipment for children in communities and schools all across Canada. We are asking those communities to match our $500,000 contribution to make that a $1 million program. That has been running successfully for many years. Through the good graces of both the government and our corporate sponsors, we've been able to enhance participation of children with physical disabilities in sport.
Another interesting program is our “Soldier on” program that we have partnered with the Department of National Defence. These are soldiers, men and women who have come back from war, who are injured. We have a Paralympic training program that we operate in partnership with National Defence to assist these soldiers to get back into a sport or an active lifestyle. We have a few of these soldiers on our Paralympic teams.
I would specifically like to share with you that Paralympic sport is a vital expression of physicality for men and women who like to compete at the highest level of athletics. We are not going to London for a hug; we are going to London to win gold medals on behalf of Canada and Canadians. The resolve of these young men and women is extraordinary, I can assure you—I witness it every day. And they will proudly represent and inspire all Canadians in their competition in London, through their accomplishments and through what they are able to do based on their disability and their ability.
In wrapping up, I would like to say this is going to be a very special Paralympic Games, because London and England is the home of the Paralympic movement. The genesis of it was when British soldiers came home from war they started Paralympic Games activity to help rehabilitate soldiers. So it has a lot of meaning to the Paralympic world, and we are delighted to represent our country at these games.
Thank you.