Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 27th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Welcome to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage as we continue our study on the status of amateur coaching in Canada.

We're very pleased to have with us today from Swimming Canada, Pierre Lafontaine, chief executive officer. Welcome to you, sir.

As well, by way of video conference from Warner, Alberta, we have Mikko Makela, director of hockey and head coach at Warner Hockey School. Welcome to you as well, sir.

As our clerk has probably let you know, you have an opportunity to make opening remarks, and then we'll go into a round of questions and answers. This is our first hour. After that, we'll move into the second hour with new witnesses for the second hour of the meeting.

With that, I will turn it over to you, Mr. Lafontaine, for your opening remarks.

[Pierre Lafontaine, Chief Executive Officer, Swimming Canada]

Thanks. I forgot to bring my swim caps for you guys today. Last time I gave you a bunch. I hope you or your kids use them.

And you keep getting e-mail messages from John Weston about the swimming lessons for MPs that I teach on Thursday mornings at 6:45, so I expect you there tomorrow. I have a bunch of Speedos here, sizes 28 to 34. So, 6:45 tomorrow morning at the Chateau Laurier, I'm expecting you to be there. If you're late, it's 10 push-ups.

This role is what I feel is probably one of the most prominent of any position in this country, and I'll tell you why in a bunch of points. Then I'd like to mention a few things that we probably should do better within our coaching community.

First of all, the London Olympic and Paralympic Games that we had a few months ago were crucial to inspiring a generation. That was the theme of the Olympics: Inspire a generation. The reason I'm saying this is I can tell you, what happened at Swimming Canada just this year alone was we finished the season going into London with 39,000 swimmers, and we're now just five months into the new season and new quadrennial for the Olympics and have more than 45,000 kids.

Within the last five months the performance of our kids at the international level inspired that many more kids. It's almost a 20% improvement. It's the biggest number we've ever had by way of improvement. When I came to Canada seven years ago, we were at 25,000. The increase in the power of your Olympians is crucial to moving our country into becoming what I think should be the fittest country in the world.

This whole thing with Mr. Weston and swimming lessons on Thursday mornings came about from a discussion. I strongly believe that people like me at the NSO and coach over here in Alberta will do amazing things from passion. We'd love to think that you guys will keep screaming at the top of your lungs in Parliament that we should be the fittest nation in the world, that we should do everything we can to keep our kids off the streets and fit. I think it's the power of the coaches to help create an environment in which kids can't wait to get to practice.

My best example for this is.... I'm just going to bring it back to one of my sons. When we moved to Canada, my kids had never seen snow before; we had lived in Australia. On a Friday night seven years ago, when he was 11 years old, my son was going to practice for cross-country skiing—we live in Chelsea, just north of here—and it was minus 24 degrees, pitch black, with the wind blowing sideways. I said to Marc-André, “You don't really want to go to workout today, do you?” They have to ski in the park with a light on the forehead. He said, “No, Dad, I want to go, I want to go.” I said, “It's so cold”, and he said, “No, I want to go.”

So I was driving the kid there, and the buzz when I dropped him off—if you ever go into Gatineau Park, it's at P8 that I dropped him off—the buzz of a bunch of kids at minus 24 degrees who couldn't wait to get on skis was all because a coach had created a place where kids wanted to be.

I think that's the power of the coach. They're able to destroy or they're able to build. They're able to do amazing things for kids. To me, the investment in coaching and the ongoing work that needs to be done in making our coaches the best in the world is crucial, not just technically, but ethically and professionally, and not just professionally in terms of how much in dollars and cents they make, but in terms of the quality of the product they put out there for kids.

I have just a couple of other items before I go through some of my points. I'd love to think that if you're in town from May 2 to 5, at the brand new Gatineau pool, which was built only three years ago.... I was involved with the building of the facility and I remember in discussion with the city saying that we need a 50-metre pool and a big 25-metre pool, and they said “No, no, no, we don't need this.” Within three months this pool was built, packed to capacity, and there were people on the waiting list.

Investment in infrastructure is crucial, because it allows kids in a community to feel that they don't need to go away from their hometown. On my national team in 2004 and 2008 we had two kids from Gatineau who had to move to Quebec City to swim in a 50-metre pool. Now they have one, and kids here stay at home with their coaches. I think that's really crucial.

Anyway, on May 2 to 5 there will be the FINA Diving Grand Prix. We're going to get basically the top eight divers in the world at the pool here, and it would be great for you to come and see it. We're going to have the Chinese, who basically won all the medals. Alexandre Despatie, if you remember that name, is not going to dive, as he has a concussion, but he'll be there. It will be a great event if you want to come and see it.

Really, for me, when I tell you this, it's because it's about inspiring the bunch of kids coming through. I'm going to be bringing a bunch of kids from Chelsea who are not divers, because I want them to see the world's best and understand the difference between being good and being the greatest.

We also have on June 1 a National Health and Fitness Day that we're trying to push. One of the concepts is to try to get every mayor in the communities in your ridings to open their pools and their rinks for free for one day and allow every kid to try it. If we could inspire one kid, they might join a club, be touched by a coach, and have their lives changed. Not everybody is going to make the Olympic Games, but everybody is going to learn all the great skills, such as being a team player, learning to win and lose, and all of these other things that are not often taught at school.

That was my little pitch for my Thursday mornings. I'm expecting you there tomorrow morning.

The coaches are the key to success in our Canadian sports system, and not just our professional coaches at the international level. You guys hear all the time about Own the Podium. It's a crucial link within our Olympic program, but Own the Podium actually starts at “own the municipalities”. It's the volunteer coaches that put the sparkle in the eyes of the kids. What we do at the top end is we just polish it up, but getting the kids involved in the municipalities and having easier access to facilities for clubs run by volunteers is crucial.

More and more, the communities are saying that they have to make money on top of those volunteer clubs. The clubs don't have enough money. The volunteers are not only running a club but they're doing everything else. They're fundraising. Your coaches are doing fundraising. By the time they get to nighttime practice, they're exhausted and they don't do what they do best. It would be like a teacher having to do fundraising for the school and washing the floor also. We have to find a way to facilitate access to facilities so your coaches can keep doing what they do best.

Coaches are the pivot point for creating an environment where excellence is a byproduct. Excellence will happen. You've all heard of Michael Phelps. I've often talked to my clubs over the years and I've asked them if their clubs are ready for a Michael Phelps if he comes in as an 11-year-old or a 12-year-old. They say that not really, but if he shows up, they'll set up the structure. I say that's too late, because that Michael Phelps will have gone through, and the structure wasn't there. Coaches could create that. We have to give them the tools and the ability to do it.

The challenge is that you have coaches who are very passionate about swimming or their sport, but often they're young. They're 20, 22, 24, or 25 years old. They love the sport and they love kids, but they have no other skills. They don't understand budgets, long-term planning, and all of these other skills.

Often they go to a club, get hired by a club president, and are very soon told by the board of directors about what they're not good at. They're told that they haven't done the newsletter properly or they haven't done their budget, instead of the volunteers taking these young coaches under their wing and mentoring them. I think it's crucial for us to educate the volunteers to do that, because what we're doing is building our country on the passion of young kids.

What often happens is these young coaches get caught up in the paperwork and look at failures all the time instead of what they do best, which is coaching. The reason I'm saying this is that what they're always getting is “The entries are wrong. You did this wrong. You did that wrong”. You don't draft a left winger and tell him he's a terrible defenceman. You build on his strength. This is crucial for us.

Coaches set the dream for kids. I can tell you about the notes I've had since I got off the pool deck and into this office, the number of notes that have said things like, “Thank you, because now I'm vice-president of Husky Oil”, or this or that, “and you allowed me to think big.” Who was the guy from The Apprentice? What's his name? He said that if you're going to dream, bloody hell, dream big. I think that's what coaches do.

There's a great expression: coaches make the impossible just a little easier to get. Impossible is possible. The only thing is that these kids have never been there yet. Our job is to get them to where they never thought they could go to.

We have to build on work ethics. This country has to build on the future kids through the greatest work ethic program we've ever done, and it can only be done when we have very ethical coaches. That's crucial in our program. Excuse the expression, but we have to fight like hell to make sure our coaches are ethical, that they are clean, that they are ready to do what's right all the time, and not cross the line, whether it's in drugs or any of these other issues. We have to make them accountable. Every child in this country needs to have a certified coach. Everybody that coaches a kid needs to be certified, so we have to facilitate coaching education.

We coaches have to be careful that we don't just think about the National Hockey League or the Olympians, as I said earlier, Own the Podium and own the municipalities. Just in Chelsea, there are 7,000 people who live there. There are 1,000 kids who play soccer, and every single one of them is coached by parent volunteers. These guys work 30, 40, 50 hours a week and then they give their time to our kids. We have to help them get educated quickly and easily, maybe through online education.

The problem, I feel, with the online education we have in Canada is that for all of our 52 sports, we reinvent the wheel in our coaching education. We look for a platform on IT instead of all of us under one umbrella saying, “Here's a great platform and that's what we'll use.” I have to pay IT people. Hockey has to pay IT people. Baseball has to pay IT people. We're not using our dollars and cents at the NSO, the National Sport Organization, level to the best of our ability because we're all reinventing the wheel. We all have to and want to do coaching education, but we need to be able to easily get to people in Gander, in Fort St. John, in Brampton, and it should be done through online education.

As for the school program, you know very well that thee PE programs are dropping like flies. We need to find a way to get PE back into the school program. I'm not sure about any of you, but if it weren't for that recess and the PE classes, they would have locked me up a long time ago. We played dodge ball at recess. We ran through the corridor to go play dodge ball for 11 minutes and the teams were already done by the time we ran and jumped off the staircase. If it weren't for that, we wouldn't be able to do it.

There's a great book called Spark, which is about doing 15 to 20 minutes of active work with kids, especially delinquent kids, before they start learning in school. They found that in the first hour and a half, it was amazing how well they could learn.

Within our coaching community, ethics has to be of importance. The passion is what we have to build on, but we also have to help the coaches not lose their passion because they're too busy doing everything else. Coaches are the visionaries, the educators, the programmers, the ones who often mobilize the volunteers and teach the volunteers how to run swim meets and how to set up or run gymnastics competitions. Your best coaches are on all the committees. My Olympic coaches are all on regional, provincial, and national committees. The best coaches do it all. They're also the ones at the Olympics and at the world championships, so we really tug at them a lot. The point here is, you're either involved and part of the solution, or people make rules on top of you and then you're stuck. That's often why these best coaches are the best coaches: they get involved in decision-making.

I have a couple of more points. We have to find ways to recognize the power of coaches, whether it's through a recognition program or a coaching day. I'm not even sure how effective it is, but for all these kids around the country who are touched by a coach, and I have four of my kids and I have often asked them which ones are their best coaches. They've had so many coaches. You know the expression that it takes a village to grow a child, these people are so much a part of this village to help this child grow.

I will mention a few points that I think we need to work on in this country in coaching.

Women in coaching programs is crucial. Our program is good. I can tell you that when we've done women in coaching, the women don't want handouts. They don't want to be put on the Olympic team because they're a woman. They want to be put on the Olympic team or the national team because they deserve to be there. We have to give them the tools to get there.

One of the challenges we have with women is that they often can't go to swim meets, for example, because they have children to take care of at home. We have to look at finding a way, through different platforms, so coaches can bring their kids and there would be a daycare there for them, and so on. We have to facilitate the work that the coaches do. I think the women are certainly the most touched by those changes.

We have to build mentorship. We all learn through school, but probably all of us have learned our best with a great mentor. We have to find a way to have much better mentorship programs. There are very few programs in this country to get a degree in education for coaching. I think we need to blow the doors open to the PE and kinesiology programs and offer way more university coaching degrees and master's degrees.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Mr. Lafontaine, I think we'll have to wrap up the opening remarks.

We could perhaps get to your other points during the Qs and As. I know that all the members are anxious to ask you questions as well.

[Pierre Lafontaine]

No problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, sir.

We now move to Mr. Makela from Warner Hockey School, joining us from Warner, Alberta by video conference.

Sir, you have the floor.

[Mikko Makela, Director of Hockey and Head Coach, Warner Hockey School, Horizon School Division]

Thank you for having me here today.

It's a very difficult task for sure to follow that kind of act. That was very well done. I'll try to keep my portion very short so we can get to the questioning.

In hockey we maybe don't have as much of a problem with the facilities, even though you can always have more facilities. In general in hockey we're pretty lucky to be taking care of that half-decently. I think that is what is good for hockey.

To go right away to the certification for coaching, I think everyone knows that it's at the grassroots that we need to have a little more experienced coaching. That's where you teach the players, and that's where you learn a lot. I think that is a problem we're facing, in our sport anyway, as we don't have enough experienced coaching at that younger age.

There are a couple of reasons. Sometimes a parent can be a very qualified coach in peewee teams, for example, but they're not allowed to do that because of the parent and employer situation. Then we'll have another coach who is not as qualified as the other coach could be. That may be a situation that we can change. It doesn't matter if it's a parent or whomever; if we can find qualified coaching, I think we should use it.

I have experience from Finland. Some of you who follow hockey know of Saku Koivu and Mikko Koivu. Their dad was coaching our team at the same time that the boys were playing hockey. I thought that worked very well.

I know that there have been examples in Canada. I can use Darryl Sutter as an example. He's coaching the Los Angeles Kings right now, but he was coaching the Calgary Flames at one time, and in the last lockout he was coaching his son's team. I believe it was a peewee, atom, or bantam team. In the final game of the season when he was coaching, he was escorted from the rink because, by Hockey Alberta standards, he didn't have the qualifications to coach.

Those are situations we're facing once in a while, so maybe there could be a little bit of understanding in a certain situation.

There are good experiences with the parents who coach, and obviously there are not so good experiences, but I think we should look at who is the most qualified to coach these younger ages.

Obviously, money always comes into play. In every category we're talking about, everybody has their hand out and is asking for more money, but that's just a fact of what we have.

I think the participation rates in Canada are declining dramatically. I have no numbers, but the provinces have a problem getting the players to their provincial camps. They're declining from 200 players to 80 players. I understand that computers and all that type of thing, the cheaper activities, are taking over. That's also one of the cases that we're dealing with.

On Canada versus Finland, for example, in female hockey, Ontario has about 45,000 female hockey players, while Finland has 2,500. Those are the numbers we're dealing with. Finland obviously is starting to do whatever they can. But we have a lot of volume here, and we're coming to the place where, if we have qualified coaches, we could make way more noise in Canada, in my opinion, than we're doing right now.

Therefore, I think that for this government help, for money, obviously it's a situation where everybody's looking for it.

I think it's very good to have these types of discussions, and I'm very privileged to be part of them.

If there are any questions, I'd be more than happy to answer them. That was just a short portion of my opening statement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Makela.

Now we will move to our time for questions and answers.

We will begin with Mr. Hillyer, for seven minutes.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Makela, I'm the member of Parliament for Lethbridge. I live in Raymond, about 25 minutes from your rink. My kids and I have played in the Warner rink quite a bit. Thank you for joining us today.

I know that your school is nationally known and that you focus on high level of play, but as has been mentioned many times already today, and in previous sessions on the study, most kids aren't going to make it to the Olympics. Most kids aren't going to make it to the high level of play. I want to talk about balancing that focus on helping the excellent achieve that excellence, balancing it out with making sure that kids can just play to have fun.

Maybe you can talk to us just a little bit about your school. What's the nature of the Warner Hockey School for girls? Who's it focused on? What's the objective of people who go to that school? What's the objective of the school itself?

[Mikko Makela]

We are Canada-wide, actually worldwide. We have had players from Finland, Sweden, the United States. We now have Canadian girls from Newfoundland to Kelowna. This is an elite program, for sure.

We're very proud of what we've done in the last 10 years. The difficult part is the location, where we are; it's difficult to try to get the players to come in here. Luckily, with the status that we have, we have been able to do that.

Other than that, I don't know what else you would like to know. I'm sorry, I kind of missed some of the questions you had.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I was just asking whether the girls who come to your school are trying to make it into university leagues, as an example, or whether they're just kids who want to play to have fun.

[Mikko Makela]

No, we are kind of a bouncing ball for the girls to go to the NCAA or CIS. That's what they come here for. This is kind of preparing them for their post-secondary education. It's very important for them to come to a place like this. We've been very successful in placing girls in the NCAA and CIS, and hopefully we can keep doing that. We've also had girls in the national team programs, which is very nice. We had a girl this year who won the world championships in Finland, playing for Canada.

So this is what we do here.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thanks.

Mr. Lafontaine, you talked about the pursuit of excellence and about making coaches create an environment where kids can't wait to get to practice.

You know, in my years of playing hockey and getting my kids through hockey, I've seen different kinds of environments. I've seen environments where coaches are so committed to excellence that the kids who aren't the superstars end up not loving going to practice, because they end up being the grunts or being forgotten or being benched.

How do you balance that? We want to help the superstars become superstars, but especially in these small communities, where we can't have three levels of hockey in one town....

Do you have any thoughts on that? I know you're in swimming, but just in sports in general, how can we balance that?

[Pierre Lafontaine]

I think your role in hockey is really kind of a high-end business. Actually, most clubs run everything. They will run the learn to programs all the way up to trying to get to the international level.

To me, the key is to create a place where even the not necessarily gifted ones feel a part of something special. Building different levels within a team and within a hockey program…. You do have the house league. I'm not sure of all the models in hockey yet, but I could tell you that within many of the club sports, a lot of kids don't necessarily make it to the top but they have a great experience because the club itself is awesome. There's a spot for them; there's a place for them to progress at their level. To a certain point, it's to be the best that you could be, not necessarily an Olympian. There are not a lot of top spots in that program.

To a certain point, coaching education needs to be done. We need to keep improving coaching education, but in the end, you have great school teachers and you have some bad ones. If we're lucky enough in a community, we have some great coaches who are able to build. That's why mentorship is crucial—like Koivu or Sutter; if they could take a young coach with them, because they know they're not going to be there very long—it's crucial within the growth of the quality of our coaches. I think it's possible to have an Olympic program and a great team together.

It all comes down to, first of all, the investment of the parents within the board of directors. I think one of the biggest challenges in clubs is that they don’t have a clear mission and vision. People come into the club and don't really know what the club is about: is it just to participate, or is it to be one of the best in the world?

I could also tell you that kids want to be very good, regardless of the level they're at. I don't necessarily agree in terms of fun. Fun is being part of something special. If the experience is good, it could still be really fun even if you don’t win today, and if the experience is not good, it could be no fun even if you do win.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Hillyer.

Mr. Dubé, go ahead for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Lafontaine, since you are here with us today, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you the best of luck in the new challenges that lie ahead.

I would like to talk specifically about the momentum created by the Olympics. You talked about the increase in registration and so on. I cannot really bring in any studies to support my argument, but based on what we have heard about other sports, it seems that it is difficult to retain that flood of people.

In your view, is it because of the coaching? That is what you seem to be saying.

[Pierre Lafontaine]

I think there are a number of factors. The first one is infrastructure. Canada's sports infrastructure is not up to the task. We can put a lot of kids in a pool. We can fit 8 swimmers in a lane, but if there are not enough lanes and we have to fit 15 kids per lane, that is too much. That is no longer enjoyable. There is not enough space and they end up hitting each other.

I can even tell you—and I stress this—that, if parents want their kids to join the gymnastics club and there is a waiting list, they will enrol their kids in another sport right away, in soccer, for instance. I feel that more facilities need to be built in Canada. In addition, as I said, they should be within the financial reach of the clubs. That aspect is a challenge because the municipalities are the ones that have to assume those costs.

Training enough coaches relatively quickly is also a challenge. Let me go back to university programs and to access to programs, even in secondary schools. Why would there not be a coaching course to address the shortage?

Mr. Moore, I have a report here from the Australian government when I was there. They started an after-school program. One thing that was crucial in the after-school program in 2004 was that they started this program because of overweight kids. The first year, 180,000 kids started the program. What they found was that 7,500 new coaches were developed because of the program. I brought the report for you. You could pass it around, and I think we might translate it. The program is still going strong. I did talk to Mr. Gosal about it, because I think it is about developing coaches.

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

That reminds me of what you said when you were here last time and you talked about the pyramid. We want to help the elite, but we also need to take care of the bottom of the pyramid.

Actually, that is very much like the example that you gave of Michael Phelps. If the programs are not appropriate and there is not enough support for local and community leisure activities, we will not have future Olympians even if the highest level of funding is provided—which is important, of course. That is part of the problem.

[Pierre Lafontaine]

I think we have to be careful and stop thinking about Olympians all the time. Olympians are the product of a country's fine sport structure. If someone has talent, they will go to the Olympics because there are coaches at that level.

I am not sure if you remember, but two years ago, the government added a tax credit for volunteer firefighters. I can tell you that we would not be able to have any sports in Canada if it were not for the volunteers. I would like to think that we will find a solution to do the same for volunteers in sport because no soccer program would last if we had to pay coaches. No rowing program would last if we had to pay the rowing coaches and so on.

I think that would be another incentive. It is not enough to give $500 as a tax credit to young people. We must also find a way to inspire volunteers, to recognize their contribution and to give them a tax credit the way volunteer firefighters get one.

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

I have one final question because my time is almost up. I would like to talk about the university programs and coaching degrees. Other witnesses also talked about this. I am a bit concerned about it because the volunteers are often parents. That is their activity.

Today especially, parents do not spend a lot of time with their children. This also includes sports. Do you feel that if a program like that were in place, we could lose some of the good things? I am not saying that we are opposed to it, but I think that is one of the concerns.

[Pierre Lafontaine]

Giving someone something does not mean taking something from someone else. I think a university training program is needed for those who want to pursue a career, not for those who volunteer on Saturday mornings and Wednesday evenings.

The same goes for school teachers. Training and programs are available. As I said, one of the problems is that people don't understand how budgets work. They don't know how to write protests or newsletters. If that is something someone wants to do in life and they want to become a coach at an international level, we can show them another way to get there. I studied biology, not coaching. I surrounded myself with some mentors who helped me become a coach at an international level.

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

I still have a bit of time left.

Let me turn to the issue of inactivity among young people and retention in sports. You talked about sport culture in the interview you gave before you left Swimming Canada. That sport culture had to do with infrastructure. Are we focusing too much on the Olympics? I am not saying this to be disrespectful to the athletes who go to the Olympics. Are there more concrete ways to accomplish this?

You talked about the tax credit, for instance. Unfortunately, sometimes, people do not make enough money to obtain a tax credit. Accessibility becomes very important.

[Pierre Lafontaine]

Our champions are our Olympians. They do what they need to do. I remember the day after the Olympic Games. I told my athletes that the most important day was the one after winning their medals because that is when they would go to give talks at schools and companies. They would go and talk about the importance of an active life and the fact that you don't need to take the elevator to go up one floor.

We need to use our assets to help them understand that this is not just about the sport and that you have to give something back. Canada has a program called the athlete assistance program. We might decide that one of the roles of Canada's 1,800 carded athletes is to give presentations in schools, for instance.

I don't think Olympians or international athletes understand the power they have in their hands. They can change the world. We must give them that opportunity. We must encourage them to knock on doors and to go to elementary schools and hand out T-shirts. That is what Chris Hadfield is doing right now with the space station. He gives presentations to young people in schools. That is what we should do with our great champions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Dubé.

Mr. Simms, go ahead for seven minutes.

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

Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Lafontaine.

Thanks for coming in.

I had a conversation a while ago with one of my colleagues, Kirsty Duncan, and we were discussing the witnesses coming in. One of the things she wanted me to bring up, and I think you have already done it, was the absence and the increasing absence of emphasis on physical education in our schools. She said it seems that every time money is cut in schools it comes from the phys. ed. program first. If it's not from that, it's probably from music, but phys. ed. is certainly up there.

One of the things we talked about here, as far as the coaching level is concerned, is that in smaller communities, and this was also brought up here earlier, it's obviously harder for a phys. ed. teacher to be the best coach in every sport, because they have to be generalists; they have to do everything. It's all about physical fitness. But it's harder for them in some sports to recognize that talent that draws a person from a small community into what I'll call the big leagues. For example, my phys. ed. teacher specialized in volleyball, but he probably wouldn't know a good badminton player or a good swimmer for that matter, if one walked right up to him and said hello.

Do you think there's a vast amount of improvement to be made when it comes to getting talented people in our schools into a certain discipline that allows them to become a far greater athlete than they ever imagined?

[Pierre Lafontaine]

It's hard in this country to have an East German type of program where if you're 6'3“ you go into rowing, and if you want to eat, you go into rowing. I think we have to find a way to have within a community—and that was my point earlier about the Gatineau pool—quality installations and quality infrastructure which will bring quality teachers, principals, and doctors, which will give kids a chance to experience all sorts of things. I think it's hard to do everything for everybody. There's a bit of luck sometimes: if you're tall and you have a volleyball coach and he happens to look at you, great.

One of the challenges we have within our national sporting organization is that we don't necessarily have the capacity to be everywhere. We have our coaches and we try to empower the coaches to look around. I also think the coaching community, whether it's the health, education, or sports community, needs to find a way to have a consortium so the coaches in an area can work together to do clinics or talks at schools.

I moved to Canada in 2005. I was invited back to Australia to speak to the ministry of health, ministry of education, and ministry of sport together within one room about how we bind all three of these to bring back fitness and a fit country. It was really interesting, because all three ministries were there, and the discussion was about how they are not silos but are so important together. I can tell you again that your coaches, your sporting organizations, your provincial organizations, even your private organizations will do anything to help, but sometimes we're not given the platform to go knocking on doors. It's hard for us to get into the schools, to get them to say to us, “why not” instead of “why”.