Mr. Chair, I am immensely grateful to my hon. colleague for asking that important question, but also I am extremely pleased to be able to welcome him to the House. He clearly makes a great addition to the important policies of this government, taking them forth for the benefit of all Canadians.
Sport and participation in physical activity is of course one of the ways in which we enjoy the quality of life in this country, which probably is unrivalled anywhere in the world.
I was very pleased to hear of the very in-depth knowledge my colleague has of the importance of sport, from participation in our everyday life through physical activity, games, school sports and community sports, but also of the long development time people take to reach a really high performance level for international competition. Of course those athletes have to be assisted in their development. Also, when they reach that high level they must have access to the best coaches. They must have expenses covered for international competitions and international competitions must be hosted in Canada, something that is immensely important.
We have to do this together. The Government of Canada cannot fund all of this itself, but it is the largest funder of sports and athletic activity in Canada. That is even before we added $30 million in this year's budget to assist our athletes in reaching the highest performance and becoming the inspiration that they are to all Canadians, so that even if they do not reach a podium themselves, they will understand the advantages of healthy living and the joy of sport.
Even with all this extra funding, it has to be understood that the expense is really not very much compared to the advantages we Canadians get from it. It is relatively inexpensive for the benefits we get. It is fun. It is value based. It is rules based. It promotes collaboration, playing by the rules, gender equity and respect for each other. This is an extremely important aspect of the quality of life of all Canadians.
I have been asked a very specific question. As well as responding generally to the importance of the expenditures that the Government of Canada makes in sport, I would like to give a bit of detail on the extra $30 million in this year's budget, which we have been able to add, and since the budget, frankly, and which has been announced over the last two months.
This extra $30 million, which takes our total budget this year to $120 million, includes an extra $4.6 million to the athlete assistance program for the year. The athlete assistance program assists developmental athletes and high performance athletes by giving them a monthly stipend, tax free, to enable them to meet the tough conditions of training to the very highest degree but still be able to live in an effective way.
The 1,400 carded athletes in Canada, as they are called, these high performance and developmental athletes, if they are at the high performance level, the highest level, they now are granted, tax free, an increase of $4,800 a year. These 1,400 athletes include Paralympic athletes and this is immensely important. Canada is the only country in the world that treats its high performance Paralympians in exactly the same manner that it treats its Olympic athletes.
If I may digress, to underline the importance of this funding and this extra funding now, an extra $400 a month on top of the $1,100 already received tax free equals $18,000 a year tax free for our Paralympians and other high performance athletes. Let us reflect on the results of the Athens Paralympic Games. We had 144 Paralympians from Canada in those games. This is one of the largest numbers. Not only were all of those people participating in the games, but they achieved number three status in terms of gold medals in the world. This is extraordinary.
I believe if we all think together about what indicator of the level of development of a society could best show that this development is high and people are respected, it is the way that people are able to access all of the aspects of a quality of life, including physical education and competition and being supported to the very highest levels of competition.
Our Paralympians won 72 medals. I hope this extra money will get even more medals in the next Olympics and Paralympics in Turin, in Beijing and of course in Vancouver-Whistler.
I have only begun to talk about how far this extra $30 million this year is going to go for our Paralympians, our other Olympic athletes, our developmental athletes and the people who are inspired by their performances right across Canadian society. As they improve their health, they have fun, they learn to live by rules and rules based systems, and they enjoy the quality of life of this country.