Evidence of meeting #9 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was athletes.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Because we are talking about women and girls, I would also note that you were recently honoured with the International Paralympic Committee's International Women's Day Recognition award this year.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
You mentioned that we did very well at the Paralympics in London. What are your thoughts about the Paralympic movement now worldwide, and how can the Government of Canada support Paralympians?
Liberal
Liberal
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
Okay, thank you.
As you know I did swim in the Paralympic Games and I can tell you all very seriously that it changed my life. As a person with a disability, I was quite good at sport in my youth and then at some point the fact that I can't see very well—I'm legally blind—caught up to me. I wasn't performing as well as I had when I was younger, and that was when I found Paralympic sport and a system of sport that levelled the playing field for me. I was competing against other athletes who couldn't see, instead of competing with athletes could and who had started to beat me. As you can appreciate, in swimming the non-visually impaired athletes were beating me by hundredths of a second because they could see the wall and I couldn't. I fell in love with the Paralympic movement and continued volunteering after my retirement, and ended up being president of the Canadian Paralympic Committee.
So much has changed since I competed in the Paralympic Games. When I swam for Canada, my parents had to pay for my uniform. Uniforms for the Paralympic team weren't funded, and that wasn't that long ago in the history of this movement. Now the Government of Canada has an equality policy whereby Olympic and Paralympic athletes are funded equally and equitably. I would make that distinction, because sometimes it costs a little more to support someone with a disability and the Government of Canada has programs in place to make sure that that additional support and care are provided, both on the personal side but also on the sport technical side. For example, a totally blind runner will have to run with a guide. That guide also receives support so they can train regularly with this athlete, or bike regularly with them if they are a cyclist. It's really fantastic. We've come a long way. Do we have further to go? Absolutely. Is the television coverage the same. Not quite yet, but it's a lot better than it was.
When you think about movements, and I would say that as much as it's a sport movement, the Paralympics is also an important social movement internationally. I'm very proud that Canada has the policies and programs that we have for equitable treatment of our athletes. You will never hear me nor any of the Sport Canada officials say “Olympic” without also saying “Paralympic”. We fund our national teams equitably in all para sports. We have encouraged the national sport and multi-sport organizations to have Paralympic and para sport representation within their leadership and government models.
As I say, we've come a long way, but my point is also that we do have a lot further to go. I'm certainly proud of how far we've come.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you very much. You've got about 40 seconds. You cut yourself short. Did you have anything else you wanted to add? Otherwise I can ask you another question. I just wanted to make sure.
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
No, I'm good. I would simply ask that please support your Paralympic athletes in your ridings this summer heading into Rio, because they are high performance, excellent athletes.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you. You have nothing more to add, Ms. Dabrusin? Thank you.
Now we go into the second round, which is a five-minute round, and we begin with Mr. Waugh from the Conservatives.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
Sport Minister, I want to congratulate you for what you've done in this country throughout your career. As a father of a swimmer who made the Canada Summer Games team way back when, I just want to....
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
Those in Prince Edward Island. He was a long distance swimmer.
I know the hours you have dedicated to the sport of swimming. We get up in the morning at five and are still at the pool at 7 p.m. So I just want to congratulate you.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
That said, the sports tax credit is gone, and you know how much Canadians from coast to coast to coast dearly loved it. It gave people in this country a chance to try different sports, not only hockey, or whatever, 12 months of the year, as you know. I'm really disappointed. The the arts tax credit is gone as well, as you know, because you were here when I talked about it an hour ago. I think it's so important to get the kids of our country off the couch and participating, to have the chance eight years out to say they didn't know they loved this sport so much and they may have a chance to be at Canada's summer games, the Pan Am Games, whatever. Now we've taken that away from the dreams of the kids in this country, I believe. That was an important tax credit. I'd like your thoughts on that.
Liberal
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
Honestly, the Canada Games is a phenomenal experience. Thank you. As a parent of a swimmer I can imagine the hours you put in as well.
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
Yes, hours and money: that is swimming.
On the children's fitness tax credit and the decision to let go of that particular tax credit, the thinking behind it, as you've probably been told, is that our new Canada child benefit puts money directly in the pockets of families. One thing we learned from the fitness tax credit over the years is that it actually didn't result in increased participation in sport, because you still had to be able to afford sport in order to claim that credit later on during the year. It didn't put money into the pockets of somebody.... If I can't afford the $200 for swimming, it won't matter that a year or eight months later I can get a credit for it or get part of that money back.
On the thinking that having a child Canada benefit puts money directly into the hands up front, what I'm hoping is that it will give parents more flexibility financially to actually get their kids out into the pools and onto the fields. It's a kind of philosophical discussion as to how we invest, right? We've decided to go with the child Canada benefit that puts money in pockets up front instead of requiring parents to claim the fitness tax credit at the end.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
I'm just hoping that instead of putting food on the table, which most of them may use that money for, we can get them back on the diamonds or the soccer pitches.
One thing I really have a problem with the IOC on is this. I'll take Rio as an example, with the summer games coming up. All of a sudden we have the new sport of golf included in the games. We have three golf professionals who I think will represent us fine. Unfortunately, we didn't know that golf was coming along as an included sport until Rio decided, with the IOC, to make it an Olympic sport. How do you fund these marginal sports? I'm not saying that golf is marginal, but you know what I mean.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK
You're telling me eight years out.... I have no idea four to eight years out from an Olympic Games if they're going to slash, in this case, baseball and softball, and go into something else. Then you go to Own the Podium. How can you go to one of the top businesses in this country and ask them to look after a sport when eight years down the road it may not be there?
Liberal
Carla Qualtrough Liberal Delta, BC
I share your frustration with the Olympics cycle. It provides a ton of challenges for national sport organizations, because, of course, we fund based on Olympic and Paralympic programs. If you're not necessarily in that program in any given quadrennial, then your access to programs and services is quite limited.
I think what we need to do is encourage the IOC to make the decisions earlier on so that we can have a longer runway into the games. That's an IOC decision. It's also a host community decision. The IOC will tell them that they have to put on a certain number of sports, and the host organizing committee will get to pick.
Liberal