3. BACKGROUND
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Sport Canada’s stated mandate is to encourage development of athletes capable of achieving high standings in national or international competitions. High performance sport is the most visible result of a complex and far-reaching system that involves every level of government, from the federal to the municipal, and mobilizes the energy of some nine million Canadians.1
During this study, we identified at least 100 interveners at the national level: Sport Canada, the Canadian Olympic Association, some 30 multi-sport organizations (MSOs), 60 national sport organizations (NSOs), and provincial and territorial governments. The federal government is a major actor but is far from controlling the sport system, which is a network of government and non-governmental bodies linked by bilateral and multi-party agreements as well as informal linkages. Volunteers contribute enormous resources to the high performance system, and among the most outstanding contributors are the athletes themselves.
3.1 Evolution of the Sport System
The structure of sport organizations in Canada and federal involvement with them, including support and guidance for official languages programming, have changed significantly during the last 30 years.
In the 1970s, in response to the report of the Task Force on Sport for Canadians tabled in the House of Commons in 1969, the government created a number of arm’s-length sport agencies. These included the Coaching Association of Canada, whose mandate was to provide the coaching support necessary to develop elite athletes, and the National Sport and Recreation Centre, which provided administrative and communication services to national sport organizations. Other agencies created in the 1970s aimed to encourage higher levels of physical activity and fitness among Canadians generally. Federal support to sport increased from $6 million a year in 1971 to $39 million in 1978.2
During the 1980s, the sport system and federal support continued to grow, with federal funding reaching a peak of $66.7 million in 1987. This increased funding was in part tied to government objectives of establishing programming support for women and people with disabilities in sport, bilingualism, international relations, and fitness promotion. At the height of its activities, the Sport and Recreation Centre worked in close partnership with Sport Canada and acted as a full administrative support unit for NSOs, providing such services as printing, audio-visual services, graphic arts, and a human resources department responsible for staffing and benefits. The Centre also provided a full translation service to NSOs and occasionally organized on-site language training for NSO staff.
The private sector and voluntary organizations became more visible and active in sport programming during the 1980s, notably in the organization of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, which generated a substantial financial legacy for the Canadian Olympic Association and the Calgary Olympic Development Association. In 1988, the doping scandal at the Olympic Games in Seoul led to the creation of the Commission of Inquiry into the Use of Drugs and Banned Practices Intended to Increase Athletic Performance (the Dubin Commission), which reported in 1990. The Dubin Report called for a rethinking of Canadians’ values in sport and a redesigned sport system which would safeguard athletes’ health and ensure fair competition.
In the 1990s, federal involvement underwent a major transformation and significant funding cuts. The sport system as a whole, in response to scandals about doping and abuse of athletes, went through a shift in values and orientation, from an overriding concern with competition results to a more “athlete-centred” system, which emphasizes ethics, fair play, and the intrinsic value of sport to its practitioners.
In 1992, a minister’s task force on the sport system tabled the report Sport: The Way Ahead, which set out a new administrative and philosophical framework for sport organizations and their relationship with the federal government. The report proposed that the government should withdraw from involvement in the day-to-day operations of sport organizations and shift its reporting requirements from an emphasis on financial accounting to accountability for achieving the goals for which funds were granted.
In its response to the report, the government committed itself to working with its partners to develop a sport plan for Canada that would include the following elements: an athlete-centred sport system; equitable and accessible sport; development of volunteer and professional sport leaders; new partnerships and strategic alliances; the pursuit of high performance athletic excellence; values, ethics and fair play in sport; and a new economic model to diversify the funding base for sport. Sport Canada went on to develop a Sport Funding and Accountability Framework (SFAF) based on these principles, including minimum expectations that sport organizations are expected to meet in the areas of athlete-centredness, women in sport, official languages, athletes with disabilities, and harassment and abuse.
By 1994, discussions among some of the major partners in the sport system, notably Sport Canada, the Canadian Olympic Association and the Coaching Association of Canada, led to the creation of multi-sport development centres. These national sport centres (NSCs) provide centralized coordinated support services to elite athletes and coaches in order to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the delivery of high performance sport programming. The first NSC opened its doors in Calgary in 1994, followed by centres in Montreal and Winnipeg in 1997 and in Toronto, Vancouver and Atlantic Canada in 1998. Calgary was chosen to pilot the concept because many of the elements required were already in place, in particular some of the facilities built for the 1988 Olympic Games and a large number of high performance athletes.
In the mid-1990s, the overall federal program review led to significant cuts in funding: financial support to sport went from $66.7 million in 1987 to $51.1 million in 1997.3 Sport Canada introduced the SFAF, which involved, among other changes, reducing the number of NSOs funded from 58 to 38. Most of the organizations that still received federal contributions saw their funding cut by approximately 25 percent. This restraint was eased somewhat in early 1998, when the Minister of Canadian Heritage announced new funding for sport and a commitment to increase funding for high performance sport by $10 million per year over the period 1998-99 to 2002-03.4
During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, the sport portfolio within government was lodged at different times within the departments of Health and Welfare, Labour, Secretary of State, and an independent Ministry of Sport. Sport Canada is now a branch of the Canadian Identity Directorate of the Department of Canadian Heritage.
