First, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to be here.
I've been a coach of many sports in Canada over the last 30 years. I started out coaching 30 years ago in competitive swimming, and then as my life evolved, I went into triathlon, running, some cycling, and as my kids have grown older, some lacrosse and some hockey. Coaching had been my life until about 10 years ago when I graduated with a master's in the art and science of coaching from the University of Calgary. Now I'm an exercise physiologist with Paralympic teams.
My first recommendation—and I know it won't sit well with a lot of coaches in Canada—is to have a certification system that's university based where our coaches would actually get a degree in coaching. There have been some universities in Canada that have offered the program, but very few, and a lot of the coaching programs are starting to fall away. The University of Calgary had a master's degree in it but it has now disappeared. The University of Alberta has picked it up.
My main reason is that I don't think our coaches in Canada know enough about how to coach and how to teach. They don't know enough about sport in general. Many of them are parents and many of them are former athletes who have no basis of education in biomechanics, exercise physiology, strength and conditioning. A lot of their knowledge is based on what they did, so we're making the same mistakes that we made 20 years ago, now when a lot of other countries are moving forward with professionals.
A lot of the European countries have degree programs, and I think they do better with fewer athletes because they are developing the athletes properly. I don't want to take anything away from the volunteers or the parents, but parents who have kids in programs get a great coach some years and other years they don't. We don't have enough athletes moving through to the international level to really get what we need. I think our athletes are quitting because they aren't having proper coaching.
The downfall of it is that people who go through and get a degree will want to be paid well. The big downfall is the cost of it. I think that if we can have much better coaching, then athletes will stay in it, and parents will be more willing to fund it if their athletes are moving forward.
As the coaches who were here previously said, those are the coaches who should be working with children who are 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 years old, the coaches who know what the children need to have when they are 19, 20, or 21 years old, and move them through. A lot of the European countries will give a group of athletes to a coach, and that coach will work with them and develop them from the ages of 6, 7, and 8 all the way through to the age of 21. If they don't do well, the coach will be fired. Then, when those athletes have graduated from that program, they will go back down to the ones who are 6, 7, and 8 years old.
We tend to put a lot of our less experienced coaches with our less experienced athletes who need to learn the skills, but the coaches don't know how to coach them or how to teach them.
Regarding participation rates, I think it just comes down to cost, and one of the biggest costs is facilities. They tend not to pay as much for soccer as a sport like skating where in Airdrie an hour of ice time costs $160. You have to have a whole lot of athletes paying a whole lot of money to cover that cost. In competitive swimming a 25-metre lane, not the whole pool, costs $12 an hour.
When I was coaching in Nanaimo, my budget for lane space was almost $100,000. My coaching budget was $70,000. I had five professional coaches on staff. If we can reduce the costs for facilities, I think participation rates would go up, which then means more kids would be able to participate, which would lower our obesity rates.
Other than that, that's all I have to say right now, until you guys ask me questions.