Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 27th, 2012

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

What has been the trend? Compare 2008 to these past Olympics, or even prior to that, 2004.

[Henry Storgaard]

It's been typically the same I think over several years: late night, one hour, with the exception of Vancouver, our home games. There we had about 65 hours of coverage. It was much better. We had live opening and live closing ceremonies thanks to MPs who I think pressured CTV into coverage, but then we were right back to where we were.

CBC has just purchased the Olympic broadcast rights in Canada. We had a visit last week with them to see if they're at all interested in the Paralympics.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

It seems that only the host country is serious about broadcasting these games.

[Henry Storgaard]

That's been our experience to date.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

It's the exhilaration of somebody winning, with the Canadian flag on their back. To me, it's paramount.

[Henry Storgaard]

We really need to surround the wagons around CBC to make sure they're going to get a good broadcast deal. We're not looking for money. We're looking for air time and exposure. We even had to pay our own rights fee to the consortium.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Can you state that again?

[Henry Storgaard]

To be able to own the broadcast rights for the Paralympic Games in Canada—the Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium would not pay for those rights to the London organizing committee—it was $140,000. We had to pay for those rights so that we could actually get the little bit of air coverage that we did. This just keeps on going in terms of the whole Paralympic movement. This is one other example of where there's such a difference in, and I don't want to say fairness, but it's just a different ball game.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I have some time, right?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

You have 10 seconds.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you today, an absolute pleasure.

[Henry Storgaard]

Likewise, thank you.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I would like to continue this conversation, but I hope our report does reflect the importance of broadcasting the competition itself and not just their stories.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Simms.

Mr. Armstrong.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to touch on a couple of different things here.

I'm going to start with expanding the pool of athletes. We talked about that last week when you were here.

I second what Mr. Simms said. I think the school system is your best hope. I think it's something that will work tremendously well. I think you can really tap into it. There are special education teachers around the country who work directly with these students all day long, every single day. If they knew there was a place where those students could go, I'm sure they would engage in this. Also, I think the physical education teachers in all the schools would embrace this. With inclusion now being 15 or 16 years old in most provinces around the country, there's a huge opportunity to increase your participation. I think you said it's 3% nationwide. If you focused on this generation coming up and worked with the school system, it would let them know there's a place to go, a goal to achieve. I think you'd see a great amount of success.

I don't want to focus on that a lot, but do you agree with that?

[Henry Storgaard]

Absolutely, I do.

[Anne Merklinger]

There are several routes to increase the participation. Schools are very obvious ones, for sure. There are also the various disability groups that we're establishing partnerships with. The military is another significant opportunity. On many of those, Henry and his team are already well along the road to establishing the necessary alliances.

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

I was a principal in a small, rural elementary school, and the disability groups just aren't close to a lot of our athletes, to a lot of our children. If you can work with the schools, the facilities are there. There's expertise in those communities, so let's tap into that as well, simply because they can't get to the bigger communities a lot of the time, and particularly for disabled students, because it's more difficult for them to be transported. I think we have to focus on that.

I'm listening to the whole conversation. I'm really glad we're having this study.

Why do we have two games? We have the Olympics, where we have male athletes and female athletes, and they compete differently. A lot of these problems could be solved if the games were intertwined and we had one games. You wouldn't have to worry about television coverage. You could attract more investment because your disabled athletes would be participating in the same games. Their medal count would go to the same total, so the country would put more resources into that, because a disabled sprinter's 100-metre dash is going to have the same value as the men's 100-metre dash or the women's 100-metre dash.

I think with inclusion at almost all levels of society, and that's something we're pushing for, at least in Canada, do you see a time when we might have one games?

[Henry Storgaard]

It may well be possible. If so, I think it will be well into the future. Right now, for the ability to host such an event, you're talking about the largest multi-sport games and the second largest multi-sport games in the world. By putting those two events together, and with the magnitude of the logistics and the timelines, it would really have to be cut back. Both games would have to be significantly cut back in the number of athletes and the number of events that occur to be able to do that in one city.

It is certainly debated in all circles and it's something that keeps coming up all the time, so at some point that may occur.

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

Logistical challenges aside, a lot of it could be done through scheduling, I'm assuming. Over the space of about four, five, or six weeks we actually hold both events now. There are two weeks where there are Olympic Games. You might have it mixed together and have different events at different times and use the facilities better. I think it could be done. That would solve broadcast issues. It would solve some investment issues because the value of that gold medal would be contributing to the overall gold medal count and the competition of the whole Olympics.

This is chasing unicorns at this point in time. I just see a lot of these problems we've discussed today being solved through that.

You mentioned that we need more severely disabled athletes. I know there are classifications in Paralympics. Are we having trouble attracting the severely disabled because of the additional challenges they are facing?

[Anne Merklinger]

It's sports specific, so certainly our observations in London, even in the swimming pool where we did very well, were that we won our medals in the less severely disabled classes. It's really about where the other medals are on the table. We didn't even have athletes who entered in the more severely disabled classes. Our job, as the technical agency, is to identify where the medal opportunities are, and the severely disabled classes are a big medal opportunity for us.

Why do we not have more severely disabled athletes involved? Their logistical challenges are much more severe and difficult to overcome. We have a harder time reaching out and identifying the athletes who are more severely disabled, and then being able to create a training environment and provide the necessary coaching expertise for them to be able to succeed. For example, in a swimming pool, a very severely disabled athlete would need his own lane and a very customized daily training environment, which most of our community pools and most of our swim clubs have not been able to provide.

The approach that the Canadian Paralympic Committee has been taking is to develop the pathway that each sport needs to have for the whole range of classes. That is some recent work that the Canadian Paralympic Committee has been doing, really a development focus within their organization, so we then have more athletes who we can work with throughout the whole range of classes.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Armstrong.

Next we have Mr. Dubé.

Now we're into five-minute rounds.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I am not going to repeat the same questions, although I share the same concerns as Mr. Calandra and Mr. Simms about the broadcasting of the Games. As a matter of fact, we all share the same fear. It was very clear when we watched the Games in the summer. We could see the difference and it was quite striking.

The point I would like to discuss has already been raised by Mr. Storgaard, who talked about the cost of equipment for disabled people who play those sports.

Before I ask my question, I am going to tell you a little story from my riding. I recently met with the Association des personnes handicapées de la Vallée-du-Richelieu in order to test the equipment they use. The cost of the equipment not only depends on the size and the number of pieces. It also depends on the innovation behind the equipment. It is often very new. We are trying to improve those things, which, in themselves, add to the cost.

Those people also told me about the challenge to find a league to play with and to find other participants. That presents all sorts of challenges. The representatives from Own the Podium want to recruit new people for the future. I don’t think the sole intent is to build an elite. It also has to do with providing access at the community level.

In your humble opinion, how can we improve the situation? Is financial assistance the answer?

[Henry Storgaard]

I'll give you my card at the end of this meeting, and then you can share that with the club in your riding.

It is part of the challenge that we have because you don't have the same population base of people with disability, so forming leagues and teams and finding coaches and volunteers is a challenge. We do try where we can. Of course, in Quebec, Défi sportif is probably one of our top organizations nationally in assisting people with physical disabilities to participate in sport and recreation. I don't think it's so much a financial issue as it is a matter of finding the volunteers, the recruits, other teams, and other leagues. I'd be most happy to try to be that bridge to find out if there are some other teams in that area.