Hello sport advocates,
Victor Lachance - Sport Matters Group

On Tuesday at 4 p.m. the Finance Minister tabled the 2003 federal budget.

One item if particular concern was the "conditional" approach to athlete
funding, tied to the 2010 bid.

From Tuesday p.m. to Friday the 21st a.m., sport advocates made their
views known via emails, media releases, media interviews, an
opinion-editorial, letters to the Finance Minister/Secretary of State,
meetings with the Secretary of State, a presentation to the Ministers
Responsible for Sport (at Canada Games), calling for the government to
remove the "conditional" aspect of this funding.

By Friday noon, after conferring with the Finance Minister and the
Secretary of State, the Prime Minister agreed to announce that the
condition will be removed.

On Friday at 2p.m., the Prime Minister made the announcement at a
media briefing in Shediac, New Brunswick.

In less than 72 hours, a budget item was reversed.

Now that is just about the most impressive piece of professional advocacy
and lobbying I've ever seen. Anyone familiar with the way finance matters
work, and how governments work will know that this was entirely a
political decision in response to the "issue" created/generated by
everyone's efforts.

This stands as a remarkable example of the kind of influence that can be
exercised based on well prepared, responsive and combined efforts around a
focussed public issue for which we had a clear and doable solution.

We will of course be thanking the Prime Minister for his leadership. But
the real thanks go to everyone who built up our policy capacity leading up
to the budget, everyone who helped research and develop our budget
positions, everyone who lobbied on those issues, everyone who responded to
the budget and lobbied on the 10M issue. Congratulations to you all.
You've just made sport better for athletes, better for the sport system,
and better for Canadians!

And that's what it's about!

Victor.

Ottawa pressured to cut strings on cash;
$10 million linked to Vancouver bid
Athletes irate over budget provision
The Toronto Star
Fri 21 Feb 2003
Page: C1
Section: Sports
Byline: Randy Starkman
Source: Toronto Star

The country's top Olympic official says the conditions placed on $10 million
assigned to high performance sport in the federal government's budget will
soon be removed. "The government has recognized that it is not the right thing to do, that it shouldn't be there," said Chris Rudge, CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee. He added that he expected the conditions would be set aside in "two days".

Finance Minister John Manley created a furor among Canadian Olympic athletes and officials when he stated in his federal budget this week that high performance sport would only get the new funds if Vancouver/Whistler wins its bid for the 2010 Winter Games, to be determined in July. Rudge said yesterday there is a lot of work being done behind the scenes to change the government's mind. A spokesperson for Sports Minister Paul DeVillers also said yesterday they were "quite confident that it's going to be dropped."

Manley said yesterday he was willing to revisit the issue. He seemed a bit
taken aback by the reaction to his decision to tie the extra money to the
success of the Vancouver/Whistler bid. Many of Canada's top past and present Olympians have spoken out strongly, calling the move a "complete joke" and a "total slap in the face." "It's something that I'll look back into," said Manley, after his speech at the Empire Club in Toronto. "I think it's (sport) an important element of national pride and that it's important for us to support athletic endeavour. Quite honestly, I thought we had. But we'll look at it."

Olympic hero Silken Laumann said it was "dumb" to make the money contingent on winning the 2010 bid. "You're sort of saying we're supporting mediocrity and participation, but we're not supporting excellence," Laumann said. "I think that's always dangerous. If as a nation we don't support excellence, I think we're cutting ourselves short. We cut out a lot of inspiration, a lot of our ability to think big. "When Roberta Bondar goes up into space, it inspires little girls to become astronauts. But it also inspires the aspiring athlete, it inspires the individual who is struggling to finish her master's and she sees this excellence and she says, 'Wow. I can, too.' It's married. Excellence of all sorts promotes excellence at all levels."

Veteran Olympic official Paul Henderson said this issue has been a catalyst
in rallying the troops. "I sense there's a real groundswell on this," Henderson said. "Everyone's thoroughly (enraged) and the feeling is athletes won't go anywhere near federal politicians." Rudge said the COC supported the government's decision to invest $45 million to increase participation, particularly among kids, but said they are concerned the money go toward benefiting youth and not be eaten up by another level of bureaucracy.
"We're going to be very involved in how that's allocated throughout the
country," he said.

Athletes tell Ottawa to take a high jump
By JAMES CHRISTIE
From Friday's Globe and Mail

Paul Henderson, a Canadian member of the International Olympic Committee,
threatened Thursday to snub any federal politician who attends the 2004
Summer Games in Athens. Mr. Henderson's comments were typical of a blossoming outrage in Canadian sport over the federal government's budget announcement this week, which tied funding for high-performance athletes to the success of Vancouver-Whistler's bid for the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Mr. Henderson is refusing to be seen with federal politicians in Vancouver
when the IOC inspection commission comes to explore the city's 2010 Winter Olympic bid next month, and he won't use his influence in sailing circles to help Canadian politicians in and around Athens. "This is a disgrace. Time to stand up and be counted," Mr. Henderson said in an e-mail message. "I have informed Vancouver that I will not be available for any photo ops with any Federal politician or Sport Canada employee during the IOC Evaluation Commission. Since the Feds do not care anyway this should in no way bother them but it does me. "Nor will I arrange for any Canadian Government official to have VIP treatment in Athens to see the Canadian sailors race as I did for [Heritage Minister Sheila] Copps in Atlanta and others in Sydney. They can buy tickets on the Fishing Charter Boats."

"Governments are short-sighted," former Olympic rower Marnie McBean said.
"They don't want to be seen as the guy who spends on sport because you don't see the benefit for six, eight years, but politicians may not have the job in six, eight years."

Lobbyists had been pushing for a $150-million Sport Canada budget to get
Canadians on a level playing field with Olympic countries such as Australia,
the United States and Britain. They said that would amount to about 1 per
cent of the government's health budget. Instead, Sport Canada funds will increase modestly from $75-million to about $90-million. The government focused its increases on grassroots participation in sport. High-performance, Olympic-calibre athletes were offered a boost of $10-million over two years — but only if Vancouver wins the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The announcement has brought outrage across the sporting community.
A poll on The Globe and Mail's Web site asking people whether tax dollars
should be spent on elite amateur athletes was 2-1 against the idea shortly
after being posted Tuesday night. Eric Morse, a sports consultant who handles communications for the Sport Alliance of Ontario, saw the results and sent an e-mail bulletin to alliance members asking them to vote in favour. The e-mail was subsequently passed along to sports organizations across the country.

"As strange as it may seem, politicians pay attention to this sort of thing," one e-mail said. "We would ask you to pass this bulletin down to members and clubs urgently and urge them to ... cast their YES ballots! We can't stuff the ballot box because you can only vote once per computer but lets DO it for sport!" By Thursday night, the Yes vote was at 71 per cent. "It's the old 'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more,' Mr. Morse said. "I've spoken with national coaches, Canadian sports centres, and [the votes] are coming from all over."

"We need to be the squeaky wheel," Ms. McBean said. "It's counter to the
culture of sport to bitch and whine, and say 'me, me, me, me, me,' but we
have to learn to do that." Olympic wrestling champion Daniel Igali angrily asked a reporter, "We're having the biggest sports event in the world [the Athens Summer Games] in one year and we're talking about money that is contingent on something happening in 2010? I just don't get it. We're the only country in the world that has held two Olympics and not won gold on our own soil, and we still haven't learned anything from that."

Former Olympian Diane Jones Konihowski, who served as Canada's chef de
mission at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, said that the budget announcement on sport could be a signal for change. "It's disappointing, it really is," Ms. Jones Konihowski said. "But at the same time maybe the federal government shouldn't be in high-performance sport. Maybe the COC [Canadian Olympic Committee] and corporate Canada should take more of a leadership role in that area."

Paul DeVillers, secretary of state for amateur sport, said he was surprised
at the announcement by Finance Minister John Manley. Mr. DeVillers said he
would work immediately toward removing the condition, and Thursday Mr.
Manley said Ottawa will consider overturning the contingency. Speaking in Toronto, Mr. Manley said the matter will be reviewed. He also admitted that he thought the government had provided the money for athletes that had been requested and that he was made aware of the apparent problem
only when he read it in a newspaper. "Quite frankly, I thought we had met the request that had been made to fund athletes," Mr. Manley replied to a question from the audience. "We'll look at it." Mr. Manley, a keen marathon runner, said sport is important to Canadians. "I think it's an important element of national pride."

Sit down and shut up,' Chrétien tells minister

By JAMES CHRISTIE
Globe and Mail Update

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien told Secretary of State for Amateur Sport Paul DeVillers "to sit down and shut up" in cabinet meetings when Mr. DeVillers tried to address funding for high-performance athletes, according to a world-champion competitor.

Jeff Adams, a Paralympic wheelchair athlete, said the Prime Minister had a dismissive and bullying attitude toward a group of sport lobbyists when they urged him last month to find more money for Sport Canada by linking sport with health in the federal budget.

But Mr. DeVillers told The Globe and Mail Wednesday that Mr. Chrétien was just making a joke that Mr. Adams and some other people in the room failed to get.

"The joke was that the Prime Minister told me to be quiet because I'd already made the point so many times," Mr. DeVillers said. "I don't know if Jeff is taking it otherwise, but the Prime Minister was essentially saying 'I want to hear if you have anything new to tell me.'"

Mr. Adams said nothing was funny in his recall of a Jan. 28 photo opportunity with Mr. Chrétien on Parliament Hill. The national athlete association Athletes CAN was trying to have input into the formulation of Tuesday's federal budget.

"We got to see the Prime Minister and we got into the office for a 'grip-and-grin' [photo opportunity] and he asked, 'So why are you guys here?' " Mr. Adams said. "I told him we were talking to cabinet ministers and started into the message that if health is the important issue for Canadians, we should be doing more for sport.

"The Prime Minister said: 'Oh, I heard this message before.' He pointed to DeVillers and said: 'You see that guy there? When he stands up in cabinet and says the same thing, I say, sit down and shut up.'

"He said he'd heard it all before," Mr. Adams said.

"Then he said: 'We're going to war, I got a lot to do, thanks for coming' and we were out in the hall. I was asked not to speak about it," Mr. Adams said. He refused to say who gave him that direction.

"It would be interesting for those people who talk about bullying in sport to get up and talk to the PM. They'd see there's a lot of similarities."

Three other people in the room for that photo session confirmed Mr. Adams's recollection, but wrestler Mike Smith said his interpretation wasn't quite as harsh.

"The words are correct. He's on," Mr. Smith said of Mr. Adams's version. "But my take was the PM was saying 'Don't tell me the same thing again. We'll address it in the budget.'

"Then again, that budget was a kick in the face for high-performance athletes. So, maybe Jeff's interpretation was right after all."

Several athletes and sports administrators across the country panned the budget, saying it offers too little to the sport community. Sport Canada's budget was boosted from $75-million to about $90-million, when athletes were looking for $150-million, or 1 per cent of Health Canada's budget. And top Olympic-calibre athletes will get another $10-million over two years — but only if Vancouver wins the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

Swimming Canada president and chief executive officer Karen Spierkel said linking support of Canada's top athletes to Olympic bidding is "confusing to most of us in the sport world and unacceptable to the athletes. What about the athletes who are training for a Summer Olympics less than 20 months away?

"Canada is notoriously underfunded compared to countries such as the U.S., Australia, Great Britain."

Ian Bird, a two-time Olympian in field hockey and a board member of Athletes CAN, called the conditional high-performance money a "half-baked idea" and said it's unfair to tie an athlete's future to a bid process over which the athlete has no control — and which may even be corrupt.

"The best one can say is that it is insensitive, and hopefully inadvertent. The worst — that it is a crass admission that winning the right to host an event is more important to politicians than the event's actual reason for existence — sport and athletic excellence."

Mr. DeVillers said last night that the conditions on the high-performance money surprised him and didn't reflect what he'd told colleagues about athlete development in the budget-making process. "No one's taking ownership for that decision. It came out of the blue," he said.

"I am determined that they [the conditions] will be removed very shortly. It's not helpful for the bid or the athletes or anyone. The $5-million plus $5-million over two years will be unconditional."

Mr. Adams said the incident with the Prime Minister was a microcosm of what happens when athletes are in the spotlight wearing the Maple Leaf. "When the focus is on, Canada's athletes get gripped and grinned. Politicians want to make themselves look good."

Marnie McBean, the triple Olympic gold-medalist in rowing, agreed that a politician's support for sport is often limited to the immediate publicity it offers. "It's frustrating, inconsistent, so unfortunately Canadian.

"They don't want to be seen as the guy who spends on sport because you don't see the benefit for six to eight years. Politicians may not have the job in six years, so they never get serious about sport."

With a report from Allan Maki in Calgary

MANLEY GIVING THE FINGER TO OUR OLYMPIANS
The Toronto Sun
Thu 20 Feb 2003
Page: 108
Section: Sports
Byline: BY KEN FIDLIN

What a wonderful, warm message of support the federal budget delivered to
Canada's elite international athletes. "You don't matter," it said. Loudly and clearly. We are talking about the dedicated kids who spend a decade or more of their lives in abject poverty pursuing that one golden moment; a moment that, if it comes, we all share, a moment we all grasp as our own.
That includes the smarmy elected public servants who would crawl naked
across a mile of broken glass for a photo opportunity with a Simon Whitfield
and his Olympic gold medal but refuse to invest more than a token amount in the sweat and toil it takes to get him, and hundreds like him, to that
place.

These people put careers on hold to train. They make sacrifices most of us
wouldn't even consider. If they are the creme de la creme, they get the
princely sum of $1,100 a month to live on. And every four years, our
shameless elected officials make political hay on their backs.

In the months leading up to the budget on Tuesday, sports officials and
athletes had been encouraged by the government's response to their requests for significantly more money, not just for elite athletes but for grassroots sport in general. They sensed a major breakthrough coming. Instead of a breakthrough, they got heartbreak.

Sport Canada's previous budget was about $75 million. The budget added $10 million to that total but it is contingent upon Vancouver winning the 2010 Olympic Winter Games bid in July. In the end, the new budget earmarks $45 million ($5 million this year and $10 million each of the following four years) for participation sports, aimed largely at children. This is a good thing, but it is but a drop in the bucket. Imagine all the deserving hands that will be dipping into that pot and coming out with next to nothing.

Now Sport Canada has about $90 million to spend for 2003: $85 million for
high performance (if Vancouver wins the beauty contest), $5 million for
grassroots. If you think that's a lot of money, compare it to Australia's annual commitment of $300 million for Olympic sports. Or, better yet, compare it to Sport Canada's $90 million budget of 15 years ago. Apparently sport was more important in the old days, pre-Ben Johnson. After the embarrassment of the Seoul drug scandal, which the politicians saw as a public relations disaster, forgetting that for every drug cheat there were hundreds of honest athletes, the feds cut their commitment to Sport Canada by more than 50% to about $40 million.

Our athletes have been battling to overcome that short-sighted, small-minded outlook ever since. Sports officials quietly had been hoping for a Sport Canada budget of at least $150 million that would have injected enthusiasm and new hope into Canada's elite programs as well as contributing to overall health of Canadians in general. They were getting signals back that Jean Chretien was going to take care of them in his self-serving legacy budget. Instead, they got shafted. This is disgusting. Have you ever witnessed a more cynical, parochial decision than the one that ties additional funding for elite athletes to whether or not Vancouver's bid for the 2010 Winter Olympics is successful?

What John Manley is telling us is that performance doesn't matter, just the
optics. If it's something that will make the government look good, then he's
all for it. Otherwise, take a hike. It seems that Manley has become the Fred Astaire of foot-in-mouth disease, especially on any issues relating to sports. This is his budget and he's responsible for giving the finger to this and future generations of would-be Olympians. On the other hand, if they were rich, important people who owned professional hockey teams, he would have tried his damndest to realize their financial dreams. He might even have phoned a bank president.

Mostly, though, he has delivered another setback to Canada's attempts to become a powerful sporting force on the world stage. It comes at a time when the Canadian Olympic Association has set lofty competitive goals for the next eight-year window. They have challenged their athletes to finish first overall in the 2010 Winter Olympics. They expect to finish eighth overall in the Summer Olympics next year at Athens and fourth in 2008 in Beijing. Those will be tough levels to achieve under the best of circumstances. Now that the feds have made it clear they're not ready to make a commitment to some of these incredibly committed citizens, it will be even more difficult.

Ah, but in the end if the athletes somehow pull it off, there will be a
bandwagon full of federal political clowns waiting at the finish line, ready
to say "Cheese!"

~Ken Fidlin- Toronto Sun

Olympians angry over new budget
The Toronto Star
Thu 20 Feb 2003
Page: E12
Section: Sports
Byline: Randy Starkman
Source: Toronto Star

Daniel Igali goes under the knife today. First, he might want to remove the
one he felt plunged in his back when the federal budget was announced.
The Olympic wrestling champ is having neck surgery to fix a herniated
cervical disc, all in the hope it will allow him to chase another gold medal
for Canada next year at the Athens Games. Now, he's seriously questioning if it's even worth it. Igali is that discouraged and disgusted by the new federal budget that offers $10 million for high-performance sport - but only if Vancouver/Whistler wins its bid on July 2 to stage the 2010 Winter Olympics.

At first, Igali figured it must be a misprint when he read it in yesterday's
newspapers. He called it "a slap in the face" to all Summer Olympians.
"We're having the biggest sports event in the world (the Athens Olympics) in one year and we're talking about money that is contingent on something
happening in 2010?" asked an incredulous Igali. "I just don't get it. We're the only country in the world that has held two Olympics and not won gold on our own soil and we still haven't learned anything from that. There's something wrong and something that has to be addressed seriously."

You can't blame the 29-year-old, who's pursuing a masters in criminology at
Simon Fraser University, for feeling a great injustice is being committed.
Like so many other Olympians, he's done his part, both on and off the field
of play. Whenever the politicians have come calling - for such matters as
going to Moscow to help pump Toronto's bid for the 2008 Summer Games or to the Salt Lake City Games to press the flesh for the Vancouver/Whistler bid - Igali has more than done his part.

But when it comes to the plight of Canadian athletes living off $1,100 a
month, the message comes in many different forms but is always clear You
don't really matter. "There was all this talk after the Sydney Olympics that we didn't want to settle for mediocrity," said Igali. "Well, look at this budget. It's mediocrity that we're encouraging. Everyone else is improving and we're stagnating. I don't see where we're going to improve on the three golds from Sydney. We could easily end up with no gold in Athens."

You can't argue with the $45 million of new funding devoted to increasing
participation among Canadians, most of which will be aimed at children. This
undoubtedly is a reaction to the alarming rates of obesity among our youth.
But the feds still fail to make the real connection in terms of what our elite athletes can provide as an inspiration in this regard. There have been some moves in this direction, but far more talk. With each instance of inaction, they risk further alienating our Olympians. "It's just a joke," said triple Olympic gold medallist rower Marnie McBean. "Sport is still much less than 1 per cent of the federal health budget. It's so disheartening the lack of respect sport gets across the board. It's been completely devalued.
"I mean you look at the way the arts are supported. The Governor General has an arts ball. I don't want to take anything away from arts because it's
valuable, but I want to know why there's less value in sport."

A good question, indeed. But the bottom line is amateur sport does not have an effective lobby group or an effective champion in government.
Delivering more goodies to the amateur sport community will do nothing for
the political clout of such PM wannabes as Heritage Minister Sheila Copps.
But as McBean points out, these politicians are the first to cozy up to the
women's gold-medal hockey team or other champion athletes for a photo-op.

Maybe, that's the solution. The athletes should charge an extremely steep
price for each photo-op. It's about time the politicians did something constructive to earn them.

~Randy Starkman - Toronto Sun

Athletes will get money with no strings, minister vows
National Post
Thu 20 Feb 2003
Page: S4
Section: Sports
Byline: Lauren MacGillivray
Source: CanWest News Service

CALGARY - The federal government may flip-flop on its conditional budget
increase that has enraged Canada's high-performance athletes. In its budget released Tuesday, Finance Minister John Manley promised $10-million in extra funding for Canada's elite athletes over the next two years, but with strings attached. The extra cash was conditional on Vancouver winning the 2010 Winter Olympics bid. However, Paul DeVillers, Secretary of State for amateur sport, said the decision was likely a "misunderstanding." "I don't know where that [budget stipulation] came from," DeVillers said yesterday. "Our athletes need that support whether Vancouver gets the bid or not."

DeVillers said he pressed the federal government to provide athletes with
increased funding prior to the release of the budget, using Vancouver's bid
as an example. "I said we'd better damn well have some athletes to put on snow and ice," he said. "Some signals may have gotten crossed."
DeVillers has met with members of the Department of Finance and is
optimistic the additional funding will be available. "I am determined to get the condition reversed and I hope to do it very shortly," he said. A total of $45-million will be focused on increased sports participation, especially for children.

Minister shocked that funds depend on Games

By JAMES CHRISTIE
THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - Page S1

The federal government's budget heeded the sport community's cry to
recognize physical education and community sport as part of the national
health strategy.

But high-performance athletes and Olympians, and even the Secretary of State for amateur sport, Paul DeVillers, were shocked that Finance Minister John Manley made money for Canada's best athletes dependent on Vancouver's winning the contest to hold the 2010 Winter Olympics. And Paul Henderson, a member of the International Olympic Committee and president of the International Sailing Association, branded it an insult to athletes.

Among the highlights of the budget that will affect sport in Canada: Sport Canada's $75-million base budget was solidified at that figure. It had included $30-million "soft" dollars from programs that were about to expire.
A total of $45-million of new money ($5-million in 2003 and $10-million for
each of the next four years) will be focused on increased sport participation, especially for children.

There will be $10-million more for high performance over the next two years,
but conditional on Vancouver's getting the Winter Olympics.

"The net result is about $90-million a year for sport, which is a good first
step, but only a first step," said Victor Lachance, the chief executive
officer of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport and the leader of the
Sport Matters lobby, which had pushed for the federal government to boost
the Sport Canada budget to $150-million. "That would have been 1 per cent of the old health budget," he said. "What we have now will amount to a half per cent."

Athlete representatives and Olympic executives felt the government
shortchanged high-end athletes. "There isn't a Canadian high-performance athlete out there who isn't disappointed about funds being contingent on Vancouver winning a beauty contest," said Ian Bird, a player on the national field hockey team and vice-president of the athlete association Athletes Can. "Is the message that we have to win a bid to invest in Canadian heroes and to value them?" he said.

Mike Chambers, the president of the Canadian Olympic Committee, accused the government of doublespeak when it boasted of its commitment to sport. He said the government's treatment in this budget amounted to "a hiccup." "They're saying commitment, they're not backing commitment," Chambers said. "First, $10-million for high-performance athletes is too little over two
years. And why is it contingent on 2010? "Do they not want our athletes to succeed if we don't get the 2010 Games? The athletes deserve better commitment from the feds than that. What do these kids have to do? They're trying to make Canada proud, getting by on $1,100 [Sport Canada allowance] a month."

DeVillers admitted in an interview that he was caught off guard by Manley's
tying of athlete money to Vancouver's bid for the Games against Salzburg,
Austria, and Pyeongchang, South Korea. The information DeVillers fed cabinet about sport looked a lot different after it was digested. "Part of our argument on the development side was that we needed to be preparing to perform well in the eventuality that we win the bid," he said. "We talked about increasing the sport development budget if we get the bid. It was a surprise to us as well [to hear high-performance money tied to the bid]."

"In any event, it's not enough to prepare athletes for 2010," said Mark Lowry, the COC's executive director of sport. "Athletes are starving to death," Henderson said angrily. "A senior international [Sport Canada-funded] athlete receives about $13,300 a year, which is less than the poverty line. "This an insult to those athletes who are striving to represent Canada. There's $1-billion for gun control and petty cash for athletes. But dress the politicians well." He was referring to the expensive leather-trimmed team jackets that federal ministers donned at the Salt Lake Olympics last year. "It's all very depressing.

~James Christie - Globe and Mail

Athletes are not contingencies

BY: IAN BAIRD
SPORT MATTERS GROUP

This statement responds to the Federal Budget`s proposed funding for Canadian athletes.

Finance Minister John Manley’s Budget announcement of $10 million over two years for Canadian high-performance sport, contingent upon Vancouver’s winning its 2010 Olympic bid is, frankly, a slap in the face to Canadian athletes. The best one can say is that it is insensitive, and hopefully inadvertent. The worst – that it is a crass admission that winning the right to host an event is more important to politicians than the event’s actual reason for existence – sport and athletic excellence.

Sport Matters, a voluntary group of sport leaders, has been working with leading national sports organizations – the Canadian Olympic Committee and the athletes’ association AthletesCAN are examples – to make it clear to Cabinet that sport does matter, and should be given a priority in funding that is at least in line with the political interest in sport that surfaces publicly at the time of a major Games. Active involvement in government policy is a new game for sport in this country, and it has indeed produced some results in the budget.

There were increases for sport in the budget. They are not in proportion to the across-the-board spending increases announced, but they are there. In the course of lobbying efforts over the past six months, it became apparent that Ottawa is most responsive to arguments based on the value of sport in terms of preventive health care, and less responsive to the needs of high-performance sport. As we understand the dynamic of budget-making, it looks like provisions for increased participation and physical activity ($45 million) found their way into the budget process fairly early on and came out relatively well-rounded. It looks as if the provision for high-performance sport was a last minute addition, and the only way to describe it is half-baked, to the extent that it even caught Federal sports minister Paul DeVillers by surprise.

We do not like to criticize any additional funding for sport; what sport receives is too hard fought for to be looked in the mouth when it arrives. However the ‘contingent grant’ is an absurdity that demands to be questioned.

Why is it contingent on winning an Olympic bid at all? Does this really mean that top-level amateur sport is of no importance unless it has a showplace in Canada?

Is it in any way fair to stake the future of athletes on the outcome of a process over which they have no control?

Does it mean that only winter sports are important to the Government, simply because it’s a Winter Games that is being bid for? Does it mean that athlete preparation for the 2010 Commonwealth Games is not important, even with Hamilton competing for the hosting rights?

Why are funds found only for the first two years? Whether we win the 2010 Winter Olympic bid or not, athletes preparing for 2010 must do so according to a planning and training cycle that has to maintain its momentum right through to 2010. Must athletes then plan for their support to disappear abruptly in 2006, and what are they supposed to do for the next four years?

And there has to be yet more in the hopper for the generations following 2010 – sport is something that needs consistent and planned investment, not spur-of-the-moment handouts based on who may be bidding for what.

We strongly advise the Government to give this another look – at the minimum to remove the ‘contingency’ aspect, and then to affirm a commitment onward from 2006 that will assure Canadian high-performance athletes of a chance to do what Canadians hope for them to do – make us all proud, whether in Vancouver or Hamilton or anywhere else in the world.

Ian Bird

The Sport Matters Group

Contact Ian Bird at (613) 789-3333 or cell: 613-447-2488, or at ian@esteemteam.com

Federal budget infuriates Olympians:
New funds tied to 2010 bid

National Post
Wed 19 Feb 2003
Page: S3
Section: Sports
Byline: Andrew McIntosh
Source: National Post

OTTAWA - Canada's Olympic athletes were stunned and angry last night after learning the federal budget has promised them $10-million in extra financial support in 2003-2004. The twist? The money flows only if the International Olympic Committee picks Vancouver to host the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

The conditional budget increase was tucked inside the budget unveiled by
John Manley, the Finance Minister, whose officials cited the "investment" as
proof of the government's "commitment to amateur sport and to Olympic
success." Eric Bedard, an Olympic gold medalist and speed skater from Shawinigan, the home town of Prime Minister Jean Chretien, said news of funding tied to an Olympic bid is offensive. "It's stupid and ridiculous. All those Cabinet ministers who came down to see us compete in Salt Lake City, they basked in our success, they held our gold medals and now this?" Bedard said yesterday from Montreal. "What does the Vancouver bid for 2010 have to do with our needs now? So disappointing."

Last night Paul de Villiers, Canada's Minister of Amateur Sports, said he was as stunned as the athletes by the conditional funding. I was as surprised as anybody else to see the condition attached to the additional funding for elite athletes," he told The National Post. "We were also hoping to see more than $5-million a year because that's not very much." "We did tell them if we were going to host the games in Vancouver we would need more money to make sure we could really compete, but I have no idea how that notion came to be attached to condition funding for elite athletes that is tied to the city's Olympic bid."

The Canadian Olympic Association was also upset. "Does it mean that if the Vancouver Olympic Winter games bid is unsuccessful, that our Olympic athletes don't count?" wondered Chris Rudge, the COA president. "I am puzzled. I just cannot understand the motivation and I am not sure what's behind it, but it is extremely disappointing. It does not demonstrate a commitment to elite or amateur sports." Olympic and amateur athletes had been lobbying de Villiers for a $75-million budget increase, including money to pay bigger stipends to athletes and coaches. The federal government announced a $45-million increase over the next five years to boost public participation in sports and fitness activities. Rudge said that's not much money when you divide it up among the various sporting groups and associations.

~Andrew McIntosh - National Post