Hello.
Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee.
My name is Allison Sandmeyer-Graves, and I'm the CEO of Canadian Women and Sport. Our 40-year-old organization is committed to building an equitable and inclusive sport system that empowers all women and girls, within sport and through sport.
I'm here today to speak to you about the sport sector's recovery from COVID-19 and to share our recommendations for your consideration.
In short, the pandemic has had serious, and potentially lasting, negative impacts on access to sport in every community in Canada. The effect of this children and their families is deeply concerning. Without access to sport during COVID, children report that they have found it hard to reduce stress and anxiety, and parents are reporting that their children are already less physically fit. On top of this, more than 17,000 jobs have been lost in the sector over the past two years. We are grateful for the support of government—federal, provincial and territorial—to help provide relief to the situation; however, it's clear that ongoing government support for the recovery remains important to the long-term viability of the sector and its ability to serve Canadians.
Today my comments will focus on two elements that we believe should be prioritized by the government as we move forward: the community level of sport and equity in sport.
I will share a few highlights of some reports that have been shared with the clerk. Canadian Tire's Jumpstart charity's “State of Sport Report”, released in March 2021, indicated that three in 10 community sport organizations were temporarily or indefinitely closed; already a third were bankrupt or approaching bankruptcy; and those that were not yet permanently closed were fearful that it might be the outcome for them. These findings really highlight the acute challenge faced by community sport and the potentially long-lasting effects of the pandemic on the sector overall.
The underlying challenges are multiple and complex, including financial shocks when revenues plummeted and costs simultaneously went up; disruptions in access to facilities; a loss of volunteer coaches at all levels; loss of staff, as mentioned; and loss of participants. Our own research shows that one in four girls are considering not returning to sport as it resumes.
This loss of capacity to deliver sport in Canada will impact Canadian kids and their families from coast to coast to coast, and kids from under-represented communities will lose the most.
With scarcity comes fewer opportunities to play and rising costs to participate, and with it, some very serious equity questions. Who gets priority for the spots remaining, whether it's access to ice time or access to a team? Are we comfortable with more and more kids being left out because their families cannot afford the fees?
Every child in Canada should have an opportunity to play quality sport, but unless we prioritize equity in the recovery, the risk is high that the kids who could benefit most from sport are left on the sidelines.
With that, we have two recommendations to continue the support for the sport sector to bridge from relief to recovery and beyond.
The first recommendation is that the Government of Canada strengthen and expand mechanisms for providing funding to community sport, now and into the future. The “community sport for all” funding announced in budget 2021 is an excellent start, but it cannot be the end. Community sport serves the most Canadians and creates the greatest public good, yet it has the least access to government dollars. If community sport isn't strong and sustainable, the system above it starts to crumble. Recovery funding should be for operations and infrastructure, not only for programs. A sustainable mechanism for directing government funds to community sport should be established as an outcome of this.
The second recommendation is that the Government of Canada make equity a core strategy and criterion for all investments in sport by the federal government. Directing more funding to community sport will contribute to alleviating the COVID-induced inequities but will not go far enough. Sport organizations typically lack the necessary know-how to address inequity and to expand inclusion in their policies, programs and operations. To that end, we would like to see more targeted funding for sport organizations led by and directly serving under-represented Canadians, as well as ongoing investments in capacity-building for mainstream sport organizations—