Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to take part.
As a point of information for the committee, in addition to my role at Sport Nova Scotia, I am also the chair of the Canadian Council of Provincial and Territorial Sport Federations.
I would like to speak very briefly about Sport Nova Scotia and then discuss a couple of Canadian sport issues prior to presenting three recommendations that we think will be critical for sport in our country.
Sport Nova Scotia is a federated organization made up of over 60 provincial sport organizations and more than 170,000 registered members across the province. As the numbers show, sport affects a large segment of our province's population. This situation is true not just for Nova Scotia, but across the entire country. In fact, we know that 55% of Canadians take part in sport in some capacity.
In addition, sport represents approximately 2% of jobs in Canada and 1.2% of the GDP. One of the reasons so many Canadians are involved is because of the broad benefits that sport delivers. In Nova Scotia the range of these benefits can be illustrated by the partnerships that Sport Nova Scotia has developed.
In government alone, we've worked with the federal Department of Justice and with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. At the provincial level we've worked with the Department of Health Promotion and Protection and the Department of Community Services to deliver programs.
The most commonly cited benefit for sport is, of course, health. We often hear of the many health benefits that are provided, including decreasing the risk of heart disease, stroke, colon cancer, and type 2 diabetes. However, it is important that we realize the broader role that sport plays in our society. When we consider statistics that tell us that active children perform better in school and active people are less likely to suffer from mental illness, it becomes obvious that sport has the ability to cut across many different spectrums.
Given the scope of our work at Sport Nova Scotia as a provincial federation, I think it is fair to ask what the relevance of the federal budget is to us. We think we'll show that it has a very significant impact; we think that impact will grow over the coming years. That's why we made the effort to be here today.
In recent years federal, provincial, and territorial ministers approved the Canadian sport policy and the long-term athlete development model. Both are geared towards improving the quality and delivery of sport programs at every level for all Canadians. Most recently, the road to excellence program has also been launched.
The significant point for all these programs is the large role that provincial and territorial sport organizations will be asked to play in order to make these programs successful. A large segment of the Canadian sport policy is enhancing participation, which is geared to help us meet our goal of a 10% increase in sport participation; the long-term athlete development model also includes significant participation and recreation components. In addition, the new road to excellence program specifically cites the key role of provincial and territorial sport federations across Canada.
The tie-in from these programs to the federal budget will determine whether Canada will be successful in achieving these goals. Currently the provincial and territorial sport organizations that will be asked to deliver much of these programs face real human and financial resource challenges. Nova Scotia is an example. Only 28 of 65 different provincial sport organizations have even part-time staff.
With that challenge in mind, we have three recommendations that we consider conditions for success in order to see Canada reach our participation goals. First, we'd like to see the implementation of the promise to spend 1% of the health budget on sport and physical activity, most importantly with specific collaborative measures to ensure that provincial and territorial sport organizations are resourced properly to allow the programs I've mentioned already to work.
Second, we believe an infrastructure strategy and fund for sport and physical activity need to be developed. Canada currently faces an estimated $14 billion sport and recreation infrastructure deficit, and we will not achieve our goals if we don't address it.
Finally, we would like to see strong support for Halifax's Commonwealth Games bid as a mechanism to address the large infrastructure deficit in Atlantic Canada compared to the rest of the country.
I firmly believe that these investments are beneficial not only for Canadian citizens but also for our financial outlook. We have mountains of evidence that show us how much retroactive health and justice measures cost. We need to shift our focus to curtailing these costs by proactively addressing the risk factors that cause them.
The measures we are recommending today are part of a solution to these problems and part of a long-term vision that ensures we give our children the chance they deserve, and that's part of making Canada a healthy, prosperous place for their children.
Thank you.