Canadian Heritage committee  Thanks, Henry. Certainly, we know that in order for the Parapan Am Games to be successful, just like Vancouver, our Canadian athletes need to perform well. We're in the midst of working with every targeted sport right now. We're having the discussion with them in terms of making sure they send their best athletes with a disability to the Parapan Am Games.

Canadian Heritage committee  May I address the question around the level of support that's provided to athletes with a disability? The approach is identical for athletes, be they in the Olympic or the Paralympic environment. We identify those sports that have athletes who have podium potential, and we provide them with the necessary technical and financial support to reach their performance objectives.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's right; that, too. Our performance metric going into the Paralympic Games traditionally has been a gold medal approach and that's due to a difference in depth of field between the Olympics compared to the Paralympics. Certainly in our discussions with our various funding partners post-London, going forward we're looking very closely at investment that is broader than a gold medal focus, certainly in the big sports like swimming and athletics.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On the heels of our discussions last week, I would like to once again acknowledge how important it is to Canada's athletes with a disability to know that the Government of Canada and you, as our elected leaders, care about how they perform.

Canadian Heritage committee  Own the Podium doesn't actually write the cheques. We just recommend where the financial investment should go. We're the technical advisers. Lots of people think we write the cheques. Ninety-five per cent of the funding comes from the Government of Canada, with the rest from important partners like the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Paralympic Committee.

Canadian Heritage committee  Each of the national sport organizations presents their four-year high-performance plans. Summer sport organizations are now presenting their plans for Rio. We will, first of all, identify and assess each of those sports and determine which sports have the highest medal potential for Rio.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think coaching is certainly a gap that we have yet to fully close in Canada, at all levels of the system. I talked about four years out and we needed eight years out. There's no doubt about it: we need more and better coaches at the five- to eight-year part of the pathway. Frankly, in order for us to continue to develop generation after generation of podium potential athletes, we need much more physically literate young boys and girls.

Canadian Heritage committee  Let's talk about coaching and technical leadership first. With each of the targeted national sport organizations with which we partner, we work with them to make sure they have the best possible coaches and high-performance directors. Without them, we're not prepared to go forward with an investment.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, we need to find them. We need to engage with all the sport organizations to see where is the potential talent, what do they look like, what's the profile of the future gold medallist, what's their wingspan for rowing, how long do their legs need to be to be a great ski jumper, and how do we search for that profile of an athlete in communities, in schools, everywhere, frankly.

Canadian Heritage committee  They do. We know that the Canadian sport centres and the Canadian sport institutes, of which there are seven strategically located across the country, will be key places for us to reach out to them and use their networks to identify talent with summer and winter sport organizations as well.

Canadian Heritage committee  We're 13 months away from Sochi. Just as we went into London making sure that every summer sport organization that was targeted had all the resources they needed to make sure there were no regrets and no obstacles, we need to make sure we have exactly that same approach for Sochi.

Canadian Heritage committee  In some sports we definitely do, and the talent identification process will be an individualized approach for each sport. For some sports, such as gymnastics, you would identify potential talent at an elementary school age. For others it would be much later. Yes, schools are a critical piece.

Canadian Heritage committee  We have not played host to a major multi-sport summer games since the Pan Am Games in 1999 in Winnipeg. The legacy from the 2015 Pan Am Games will have a significant impact on high-performance sport in Canada. We've worked very closely with our partners in Sport Canada, the Toronto 2015 bid organization, the Canadian Olympic Committee, and all the summer sport organizations that stand to benefit from the high-performance legacy usage out of Toronto.

Canadian Heritage committee  Certainly. Sport Canada is in the midst of finalizing the evaluation tool and they've worked very closely with Joanne and me in terms of designing that evaluation. It will go out to every targeted national summer sport organization and the individual athletes that were targeted.

Canadian Heritage committee  Absolutely. It couldn't be better. They are working very closely with us, seeking our input in terms of whether we are sure that this third party evaluation will meet our needs. In many respects it enables us to use this as the external evaluation framework entirely, as opposed to us having to replicate it and do it again.