http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040323.wfelicien23/BNStory/Sports/
No gold-plated funding for Canadian athletes
Wednesday, Mar. 24, 2004
By JAMES CHRISTIE
From Wednesday’s Globe and Mail
Toronto — The Olympic and amateur sport community saw their hopes of increased funding and dreams of gold medals dashed yesterday when the federal government’s budget totally ignored the sport sector.
The Sport Canada budget will remain at $90-million a year, according to a source in the Finance Department, with $20-million in “sunset” programs being preserved rather than expiring.
However, that still leaves Canada’s top Olympians and amateurs to get by on an average of $13,300 a year in federal support, says Victor Lachance, the senior leader of the Sport Matters lobbying group. Sport Matters had pursued the federal government for a $50-million immediate boost in funding and optimistically hoped for an increase to $180-million a year to reach the Canadian Olympic Committee’s goal of being the top medal-winning country at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games.
Instead, one athlete said at the Canadian Sport Awards last night, “the feds are pointing us at a three-peat. Canada can be the only nation to host three Olympics and not win a gold at home.”
“The current low level of government investment in sport will not achieve the Olympic results Canadians desire and our athletes deserve,” said Michael Chambers, the president of the COC.
Michael Smith, the president of Athletes Can, the association of national team athletes, said the message the government sent athletes is their investment of time and work and sacrifice “simply is not valued. The government is saying mediocrity is acceptable for Canadian athletes and for the Canadian public. We just don’t agree with that.”
“We looked far and wide in the budget papers for some indication the government recognized the contribution sport makes to healthy living and to communities and found nothing,” Lachance said.
Likewise, there was no new money for high-performance athletes, whose exploits inspire greater participation at grassroots levels.
Hopes had been raised that the federal government would increase investment at participatory and elite levels after sport was mentioned in the Paul Martin government’s first Throne Speech.
Stan Keyes, the Minister of State for sport and Revenue Minister, had trumpeted the cause of sport as an instrument to create a healthier, active society, reducing costs in the health-care system.
But Lachance said that while the federal government appeared to understand the message, it wasn’t spurred to action. There was no perceived crisis to address.
He said the sport sector and recent sport ministers had done a good job of presenting sport’s case to the extent that a new sport policy, a federal-provincial action plan and a sport caucus had come into existence.
“But there are still some decision makers who don’t understand how sport contributes to achieving their social objectives. They missed the opportunity to invest.”
In presentations at the Spirit of Sport’s 31st annual Canadian Sport Awards, presented by Investors Group, cross-country ski icon Beckie Scott was honoured for the Spirit of Sport story of the year. The anti-doping crusader was belatedly awarded an Olympic gold medal after a battle of almost two years in which two Russians were disqualified for doping.
Double world champion hurdler Perdita Felicien was selected as the female athlete of the year; whitewater kayaker David Ford is the male athlete of the year; the world champion men’s rowing eights are partners of the year, guided by Mike Spracklen, coach of the year; the women’s World Cup soccer team, the first Canadian senior side to win a World Cup match, is the women’s team of the year; the men’s world champion hockey team is the top men’s team; world champion diver Alexandre Despatie took the top junior male honour for the fifth time; and Shannon Rempel, world junior speed skating champion, is the top junior female.
John Furlong, the chief executive officer of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, won the award for leadership in sport.