Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 20th, 2012

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for the contributions that you have made, along with our athletes, in terms of making our country proud in London. It is really much appreciated.

My question is for Mr. Aubut. I'm wondering if you can describe to us the federal government's involvement or help leading up to the London games. Also, was High Commissioner Campbell supportive of the Olympic Games as he was during the Vancouver Olympics, or was he more supportive?

[Marcel Aubut]

I don't know what would have happened without him over there. He was our best fan. First of all, for the preparation of the games he was the absolute partner we were dreaming about. He knew what we wanted. He knew what we were all talking about because he was the architect of what happened in Vancouver. Every time we said, “Commissioner, we need this”, he would say, “Yes, but I think you forgot something. You also need this.” He was ahead of us.

He deserves incredible credit for the achievement we had over there. He was a tremendous partner.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

That's great.

Can you also describe the corporate role and the support that corporations are providing in terms of funding athletes? Where is it at the moment? Do you see that increasing in the coming years? Do you see the line on the graph going up or down? What sort of feeling do you have from the corporate sector?

[Marcel Aubut]

The status quo is not an option. It has to increase. That's why we announced the $100 million coming from the private sector, and that's just the beginning.

Did you want to add anything, Christopher?

[Christopher Overholt]

Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Gill.

As Marcel has mentioned several times, the focus that we've had in the last couple of years with the private sector has been to go out and really build on the Vancouver story and talk about all the wonderful momentum our athletes and coaches in sports gathered up in that moment in time, and to literally take it back into the private sector as a story of success, as one of excellence, as one that can stand for a symbol for the country and for the Canadians it represents.

As you have no doubt read, we've had some success doing that. We've had unparalleled and incredible support from the private sector not seen before in this country. It is on the increase with the Canadian Olympic Committee. It's also our responsibility, as part of that, to continue to tell our athletes' stories, our sports stories, to continue to architect a conversation around why those sports and why participation in those sports is critical so that we can continue to drive investment in our national sports federations, so that we can continue to drive marketing dollars and investment in our athletes to get them to help tell their stories to Canadians as well.

If we can do all those things, then we can be successful over time, not just building on the momentum of Vancouver, but rather sustaining that momentum, not just over 4 years, but over 10 years, 15 years, 20 years.

That's been our purpose over the last 30 months. We've been laser focused on this. We've had some incredible support, as I've said. But as has been commented on a couple of times, if you're standing still, you're going backward. In this world right now we're watching the U.K., the United States, and Australia make record investments in the sport community to compete at the highest levels possible. The private sector has just started off the conversation. As has been mentioned several times, there is still lots of work to do.

[Parm Gill, Conservative, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you.

I have a question for Own the Podium. Can you tell the committee more about how your organization determines the amount of funding that is allocated towards each individual Olympic sport? How do you go about doing that?

[Anne Merklinger]

Each of the national sport organizations presents their four-year high-performance plans. Summer sport organizations are now presenting their plans for Rio. We will, first of all, identify and assess each of those sports and determine which sports have the highest medal potential for Rio. We then rank those sports based on that number one criteria, which ones have the highest medal potential for Rio. In that analysis, we identify what it would cost for the sport to develop and implement a world-class high-performance program.

At the top of the ranking list, if it were rowing, which was our number one sport going into London, we would make sure that the investment approach for rowing was addressed first and foremost. Then we would go to the next ranked sport based on total medal potential, and address their investment priorities. Then we would just go down the list, making sure that we have not left any sport with medal potential going into Rio off the table.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Gill.

Mr. Dubé.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The conversation today is focusing a lot on the long-term vision and the role that sport plays in culture and the communities. A post-mortem usually requires us to look back, but in sports, we simply consider how to do better next time. I think the comments show that.

Having said that, those athletes started somewhere. But we are seeing that young people are perhaps participating less in sports. The comments you made lead me to believe that you share my point of view on this. In our constituencies, we hear these stories from people who were encouraged to take part in this or that sport. It may be girls who see women play soccer and so on.

What role do you think those athletes play in our communities, in other words, at a truly local level? In terms of the future and an overall vision, how can this encourage young people to get involved, be active and have more fun, but perhaps also keep fit?

[Christopher Overholt]

It's absolutely the right question. As the Olympic movement, we have the wonderful platform of the values that the rings represent. While our high-performance athletes around the country have a chance to serve as great representatives of this country, and have a great chance to serve as symbols of national pride, they also have a very powerful platform to engage the youth of this country, as has been said several times already today.

I think you would find in talking to any of our athletes that most of them already feel that great sense of responsibility and, for those from small towns around the country, I think you've probably even seen evidence of that in those communities. The great thing about the national sports franchise that is the Canadian Olympic team is that it is from the communities that we're from. It's as diverse as the nation is diverse. They have a chance, at every opportunity when they're in those communities, to make those statements about the importance of health and wellness, about not only physical fitness and physical literacy, but mental fitness and mental—

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

I don't mean to cut you off, but my time is limited.

Do you do stuff to promote—

[Christopher Overholt]

Of course.

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

—to get them out there and capitalize on the visibility that these sports, which not everyone follows regularly, get during the Olympics?

[Christopher Overholt]

Of course. I don't have enough time to explain all of that, but I'll point you to two things quickly.

First of all, in reference to when we were together in May, we have an outstanding and world-leading reputation in the area of education with our Canadian Olympic school program. It touches tens of thousands of children across the country and has authored in many ways our athletes' stories and the inspiration they can and should appropriately provide the kids of the country.

In the brief time that this leadership team has been together, we also have been working diligently with our sport community and with many members from municipalities across the country to engage our athletes in everything from the Santa Claus parade to, as was mentioned earlier, hospital and school visits. That's been a far, far more aggressive part of our education, youth, and community engagement strategy over the last six months in particular, but even since the games. Dimitri and his team, working with our marketing department and our athlete services area, have been in many communities across the country doing just as you describe.

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

Do you feel that those folks, municipalities and such, have the resources to capitalize on those things? I remember at the lunch we had here on Parliament Hill, I spoke to an athlete who said that sometimes it's tough when you have to go across the country to practise a sport when you wish you could do it your own backyard. Mind you, that's part of the sacrifices that are made, but is there work being done to improve that?

[Christopher Overholt]

Certainly, separate from the investments that we're making in our athletes, in both a targeted and non-targeted fashion, from the COC's perspective, the work that is required in the community, as you point to, the important work that our athletes can represent, is space that we've taken up at the Canadian Olympic Committee in the last couple of years. We understand, again, the power of the message that can be delivered to those communities, so in many cases we have been the ones paying to take athletes into those communities. We have been the ones sending them here to Ottawa to connect or sending them into those hospitals. We have been making those efforts and those investments to make sure that Canadians have those chances to hear those stories and to connect directly.

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

Along the same sort of theme, what has the reception of that been so far? I'm getting the sense that it's something new with the new leadership, as you mentioned. Has there been success? Is there still more work to be done?

[Christopher Overholt]

It is incredible. Reference was made to the Atlantic provinces. Of course, after 2010, we took our hall of fame and celebration of excellence right out to Moncton, but we didn't stop in Moncton. We were in Halifax visiting the CFB. We were at mile one of the Terry Fox run. We stopped in Charlottetown, P.E.I. with Heather Moyse in her middle school. We finished off in Moncton with a concert for 6,000 middle-school-age children and a great community engagement in the market on Saturday morning. Anybody who was witness to that or witness to what we just finished delivering in Toronto on Bay Street and during all of the efforts that we made in the schools and the hospitals, would know that every time it is a powerful tool and an opportunity for us to demonstrate that the rings can stand for more than high performance.

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

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Dubé.

Mr. Brown, go ahead for five minutes.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thanks to our witnesses for coming back a year later and giving us a little update on how everything has gone.

I'd be remiss if I didn't put in a little plug for Conlin McCabe from Brockville, winner of a medal in the men's eight rowing. After he returned to Canada, we had a big celebration in Brockville to celebrate that, which was great news. I spent many years training and racing in sprint kayak, so I was especially excited. In fact, I got up in the middle of night to see the medals that were won by Adam van Koeverdon, Mark Oldershaw and Mark de Jonge. It was great. I know we were all excited about that. We did very well on the water over in London, which is really exciting.

I'll turn to what the Canadian Olympic Committee is doing, because you're really in the media a lot; you're very present. I think it's great, and it keeps sports top of mind in the media. Maybe you could tell us if, in fact, that's deliberate, and why it really is important.

[Marcel Aubut]

If you go back to 2009, I proposed a platform to the Canadian Olympic Committee for the future, and it was very clear. I said we had to build a Canadian Olympic Committee that was going to become a natural leader, not a leader that just says, “Follow me”, but one that you want to follow. You do that by achieving goals, by delivering what you promised, and by having a team like the one I am leading, a fantastically talented team.

We started by bringing all the Canadians who were pretty much outside of the country back home and saying that we have a job to do together. We got them back from the Miami Dolphins, from Nike in New York City. We said, “Let's work together to make this organization an organization that's going to get the prestige, that's going to get the credibility of being able to lead a sports team in Canada, with partners like OTP and others.” We just started that, I would say, two and a half years ago. You could see the results right away. It's absolutely on purpose that we are very visible, that you see us working day and night. It's about making the athletes the core business. It's the same thing for coaches. You see them. Their story has to go 365 days a year. Professional sport is there. They take up the whole room. That's the end of it. We just decided that we were going to have our fair share. Those athletes deserve to be recognized, deserve to be supported, deserve to be loved, deserved to be appreciated for what they do for free for this country. There are no millions there for them. We just decided we are going to get it, we are going to do it, and after two and a half years we are right on the page. There is lots more to be done, though.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Anne, maybe you can tell us this about the Own the Podium program, how government money is spent, and how it helps an athlete improve and get to the podium.

[Anne Merklinger]

Own the Podium doesn't actually write the cheques. We just recommend where the financial investment should go. We're the technical advisers. Lots of people think we write the cheques. Ninety-five per cent of the funding comes from the Government of Canada, with the rest from important partners like the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Paralympic Committee.

Ryan Cochrane won a tremendous medal in the men's 1,500-metre swimming event in London. Four years ago we sat down with the swimming people and they told us what Ryan needed in his daily training to contest for a gold medal in London. He needed to continue with his great coach, Randy Bennett, who is one of the best in the world. We didn't want to lose Randy, and we've just signed him to another four-year contract. First and foremost, we talked about the importance of coaches.

We also needed to make sure that Ryan had access to a swimming pool to train in a way comparable with what the rest of the world was doing. We needed to make sure that he had the best strength and conditioning equipment, and that he could go to every competition that would help him advance. We offered him the best physiologists, sport massage therapists, strength and conditioning experts, physiotherapists, athletic therapists, and sport psychologists. He needed everything to be world class, day in and day out in his daily training environment. In addition, Ryan needed a group of seven or eight other swimmers to push him every training day. We work with the sports to identify what all this will cost. We made sure that we, with all of our partners, were able to deliver that for Ryan, and it worked.

We do that with every single targeted sport, making sure that every athlete who's identified gets what he or she needs. This is not always just for four years; for some sports we have the resources to look eight years ahead.

That's an example of what Own the Podium does on behalf of our funding partners.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Thank you for that. It really helps.