Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 27th, 2016

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I think there are definitely examples of really good work that's being done at the provincial level. With the other side of my hat, with persons with disabilities, as we consult on our accessibility legislation and we do thematic round tables on areas of transportation, employment, what have you, one of the things I'm doing is sport and recreation. What we're doing is convening a group of thinkers around how we can use best practices in sport and recreation to attract more people with disabilities into sport. They deal with issues of what's being done at the provincial levels, and how do we get more girls and women into sport, especially girls with an acquired disability, that is, you've had an accident, you weren't born with your disability. I would say there's a big gap on the acquired disability piece.

Ontario is doing some great work, B.C. is doing some great work, but it's a huge challenge because, like most systems, the sport system was not designed originally with—I would probably say women—but at least girls with disabilities in mind. They were not at the forefront of thinking when we designed our current system, so we're retrofitting our system to be inclusive of everyone.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you.

I would pass the rest of my time to my colleague.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you for coming here, Minister.

I want to ask you specifically about some organized sporting events, such as the gay games and seniors games, that don't seem to fall under the framework for federal funding at the moment because they're neither professional sports nor are they the association-driven sports. I was wondering if there was an opening for them or a possibility in the future so that, even on a case-by-case basis, events like that might be able to receive some funding.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I think I'll ask these guys to elaborate in a second, but what I would say to that is yes. That's one of the things we're looking at.

Historically, the focus of Sport Canada investment has been on Olympic and Paralympic sport. Then, on a case-by-case basis, we may extraordinarily fund the police and firefighter games or.... These are mass participation events that achieve a lot of other objectives, but they don't get our high-performance athletes to the Olympics or Paralympic Games. With that having been the lens, that's where the money has gone.

Right now, we are reviewing our sport funding and accountability framework and the criteria in that. In addition, we're developing an international sport strategy, which has hosting as a component. One of the components of that hosting piece will be mass participation events that are the type of event you're talking about. They would bring in a ton of sport tourism revenue, get a ton of people participating in sport, and highlight diversity in our country. Those are all really important government objectives, so we're definitely looking at how we can tweak our current practices and policies to be more inclusive of these really important initiatives.

[Seamus O'Regan, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

We've been privileged enough to hear from athletes here at this committee, and much as when we spoke last year at this committee with you, we celebrate how well our female athletes did at Rio, but more than that, I think the way they were treated by the media and the way young girls and their families embraced their performance and were so proud of their performance was a bit of a watershed.

One thing we have definitely learned on this committee is that in no way at all can we rest on our laurels in this, and that the spotlight really shines now on how we increase that momentum. We heard some fairly gripping testimony from athletes who in the past have experienced sexual harassment within the environment of athleticism. Something you've brought up is that the element of coaching is an essential element, as is having female coaching and just having an environment that is friendlier and therefore allows our athletes to be their best, which at the end of the day is what we want.

I wonder, because of your unique point of view, if you could give us some of your personal thoughts on that.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Yes, absolutely. I'm happy to.

We need to recognize in sport—but I would say this is broader—that men and women are different. In order to bring out the best in people, you have to recognize the differences and bring out their best through that recognition.

Again, I think that from the start we need to design our programs and policies through an inclusion and diversity lens, so that it isn't designing something generic and then recognizing that it doesn't really work for girls and trying to fix it. It's about being very clear how we intentionally include everyone from the start as we design our policies and programs.

I think what we're talking about—and it's a challenge—is a culture shift. It's a societal change in attitudes, right? I have a 6-year-old daughter and I have a 16-year-old daughter. My 6-year-old daughter goes onto the soccer field and we tell her how great she is and she's equal to the boys and it's all lovely, but by the time your girls hit 14 or 15, some lady will yell out a comment to a boy and say “you run like a girl”, like that's a bad thing. I know some girls who are pretty damn fast, right?

It's just the idea that somehow in that 10 years of a kid's life they go from having such a positive and confident self-image around their participation in sport to the culture shift of it's okay that slagging is to say, “You run like a girl”. To me, this is a really big challenge that we have to face as a society: When does that become a compliment instead of slagging? When we're there, that's when we'll know we have achieved something.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Mr. O'Regan and Madam Minister.

We'll go to a second round. I'm looking at the clock, and I think we could go to a five-minute round, as we've sometimes done with three participants.

We'll start with Mr. Maguire, for the Conservatives.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Thank you, Minister, for being here today.

I was most interested in your earlier comments about facilities and some of the 49-year-old centennial arenas we have now around the country. I noticed your comments about the $150 million in the 150 fund for next year for a lot of events, but I'm more interested in the Building Canada ideas, in which I think recreation is now included.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Yes.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

I'm wondering what you're doing to emphasize that with your colleagues and cabinet. The budget will be coming up next spring. How can that be used? How do you see it fitting in?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Those two pieces open the door for important discussion: first of all, making recreation facilities an eligible category of Building Canada infrastructure dollars; and second, having a modest investment through this budget in a dedicated fund for sport and recreation infrastructure.

I am on a crusade for using sport and recreation to achieve broader goals, and one of those, the big one, is health. We know that the health of our country is directly related to the levels of physical activity and sport participation. In 2002, the Romanow report said if you spend $1 on sport, you save $5 on health. You don't have to like sport. That's pretty good math.

If you go to Attawapiskat and you ask the youth there what they need and what they want in their community, the first thing they write on the list is a recreation centre. They need a place to gather, a place to play. I spent a lot of time with my cabinet colleagues suggesting how they can achieve their objectives through sport and recreation or a sport-and-recreation angle or lens. I would say that recreation infrastructure is an absolutely huge piece of that, and that's why it's in my mandate letter to work on improving the state of our recreation infrastructure across this country.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

I come from a mostly rural area. Half of my constituency is the city of Brandon, but the other half is pretty spread out. It's a lot of smaller communities of anywhere from 400 or 500 people to 2,000. They have taken action themselves in some of these areas. For example, in Hartney, 10 or 12 years ago they built a small arena. They had a very good record of athletes getting involved in amateur sports and professional sports, most of it in hockey and baseball. They ended up with the Westman Wildcats midget hockey team, which won the western Canadian championships the first year they were in existence. They wouldn't have done it, though, without the $2-million arena they put together. It's a very functional type of arena, but it worked.

I'm wondering how you would look at fitting facilities into some of those smaller towns. A number of professional, and even more of our amateur, athletes have come from these small areas and rural areas and remote areas and they need those types of facilities.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

An immediate response is, of course, the small communities fund. The other piece—and “lobbying” is not quite the right word—is to work with provinces and municipalities to identify these facilities as priorities in their own communities. A lot of the relationships we have in infrastructure are driven by what provinces or municipalities identify as their priorities. If the message gets out that provinces or municipalities identify recreation centres as priorities, we will respond accordingly.

The challenge—and I hear this all the time from recreation centre operators and at the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association—is that it's really hard to compete with waste water. There are some fundamental challenges municipalities face that always take precedence over a recreation centre. That's why we need this dedicated pot for sport and recreation infrastructure. I would say recreation infrastructure, even more than sport and recreation—recreational multipurpose, super-functional—would be a huge win for our country.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

It needs to be there for more than just the athletic part of it, I agree. There's also the health part, totally.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Absolutely, it's the heart of so many communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Please be brief.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Okay, I'd like to go, because you're killing curling rinks in this country.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

How?

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

They are being taxed to death by municipalities. I've sat on many curling boards and I've covered many briers. That sport is dying because municipalities are taxing these curling facilities from coast to coast to coast. Their costs for hydro and for running the rinks has skyrocketed and they are shutting down at an alarming rate.

You talk about participation, curling is one sport—

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Curling is a great sport.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

It may be, but I'm going to be honest with you. In 10 years we may not see it.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

That's interesting. I wasn't aware that was happening. I'm happy to look into that, because it's a real shame.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

I can give you a name in our city of Saskatoon. We're down right now to four curling clubs. We once had seven.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Mr. Waugh.

Mr. Samson.