Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Honourable members of Parliament, I truly appreciate this opportunity to participate in this discussion as you review Bill S-228.
I'm also joined by Erica Wiebe, Olympic and most recently Commonwealth Games gold medallist in wrestling.
[Applause]
Erica and I are here today representing the Sport Matters Group. The Sport Matters Group is a coalition of over 80 sport, physical activity, and recreation organizations, who together promote values-based sport at all levels of the Canadian sports system. Our remarks today represent the interests and shared opinion of grassroots, amateur, Olympic, and Paralympic sport organizations across Canada.
As a sector, we welcome the federal government's efforts to improve the health of our children and youth by protecting them from unreasonable marketing tactics that promote unhealthy foods. We welcome the opportunity to distribute and amplify the important message carried by Bill S-228 across the Canadian sport community, while augmenting it with complementary messaging around the benefits of an active lifestyle. However, while we fully support any government effort to help young Canadians make better nutrition choices, there will be serious repercussions if the new legislation as currently constructed wrongly prevents the related companies and sponsorship categories from investing in sport programs for children and youth.
Sponsorship creates real opportunities for kids of all ages and backgrounds to get involved and provides a foundation so they can access sport. It helps to advance key principles of the Canadian sport policy by enabling sport activities to be more available and more inclusive. It encourages collaboration between sport organizations, governments, and the private sector, with a shared goal of improving the health of our young people.
In its currently drafted form, Bill S-228 would likely prevent, dissuade, or diminish the likelihood of partnerships in this sector for sport organizations in Canada. This would significantly shrink the available sponsorship market and prevent partnerships with brands that currently have some of the most established track records of investing in sport, physical activity, and recreation. Lack of sponsorship would result in increased costs and fewer children and youth would be able to access sport programs that are ultimately intended to help combat obesity. We are asking this committee to consider exempting sports sponsorship not only at the community level, but also those critical partnerships at the provincial and national levels, where sport organizations receive significant support that has a direct impact on the preparation of our Olympic and Paralympic heroes.
Sport in Canada is significantly reliant on sponsorship. Without private sector funding of sport organizations, events, and athletes through sponsorship and other forms of marketing partnerships in Canada, substantial portions of the system would lose commercial and financial viability. Approximately $1.98 billion is spent on sponsorship in Canada. Together, professional and amateur sport account for 53% of the sponsorship industry. Partners, such as Tim Hortons, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, General Mills, Subway, Kraft, Booster Juice, Boston Pizza, Panago, Gatorade, Clif Bar, PowerBar, Danone, Pinty's, Starbucks, Nestlé, and Wrigley's, to name a few, play a significant role in sports sponsorship. Should the food and beverage category be prevented or dissuaded from ongoing investment in Canadian sport, it would substantially diminish the market size and available funding options.
Several organizations contributed to this presentation and I want to highlight some of the impact statements they provided to us. Both Canada Soccer and Hockey Canada, two of the highest participation sports in Canada, have indicated that their affiliates at the provincial, territorial, and regional levels would lose many millions of dollars of investment in programming, impacting approximately 470,000 children participating in each sport. Those numbers do not take into account the impact of hundreds of thousands of children participating in Timbits hockey and Timbits soccer, which are managed separately and directly by Tim Hortons.
At the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, athletes supported by sponsors likely to be impacted directly by Bill S-228 won 38% of Canada' medals. Meanwhile, 20% of the medals were won by athletes who were sponsored by beverage companies specifically. It should be further noted that sponsors within this community commonly self-police with respect to responsible advertising.
We have heard from more than a few national sport organizations which have already been informed by existing sponsors that they do not intend to renew their investments as a result of Bill S-228. The bill is still two years away from being enacted and we are already feeling the effects in the amateur sport system.
To further contextualize the potential impact of Bill S-228 on the Canadian sports system, it should be noted that the sponsorship sales process is becoming increasingly challenging for amateur and grassroots sport in Canada. Decisions to sponsor are taking longer than ever before and are being scrutinized based on criteria against which amateur and grassroots sport typically do not perform well, such as broadcast reach, syndication, and attendance numbers.
I also want to point out how this will impact sports sponsorship at the community level. We all know that the majority of community sponsors are food and beverage companies, such as the local Subway franchisee or pizza restaurant. How will the local swim club cover the cost of providing meals for their volunteers during a swimming competition if they can no longer receive cash and value-in-kind contributions from their local restauranteurs?
We also fear a downstream impact of the bill. If organizations such as Hockey Canada and Canada Soccer are already starting to feel the pinch, what will happen to smaller organizations that do not have large participation numbers but still compete for sponsors and play an important role in creating programs for children to be active in such sports as swimming, skating, athletics, and cross-country skiing?
Speaking of smaller participation sports, I think this is a perfect segue for Erica to tell us about her story.