Canadian Olympic Committee CEO David Shoemaker sees the Future of Sport in Canada Commission’s report as a road map to fixing a multitude of issues surrounding sport in this country.
To Shoemaker, the first few steps on that journey are clear: prioritizing safe sport, and increasing funding to athletes and national sport organizations.
National sport organizations in Canada haven’t seen an increase in core funding in more than two decades, while the cost of everything continue to rise — costs that inevitably get passed on to athletes.
It’s an issue the Canadian Olympic Committee, Canadian Paralympic Committee and athletes have been raising the alarm about for years.
When it came time to speak to the commission, which began its work in 2024, Shoemaker emphasized that an underfunded sport system is an unsafe one.
“It is an important thing for everyone to take note of that the commission agrees, and that the commission not only sees the urgent need to increase core funding to national sports organizations as among the top priorities, but draws a link between that funding and the safe sport situation and maltreatment in sport across the country that we need to address as well,” Shoemaker said on Wednesday in an interview with CBC Sports.
The Future of Sport in Canada Commission’s final report, released on Tuesday, calls for sweeping change to the way sport is structured in this country. Its work found “the widespread presence of maltreatment and abuse” in an underfunded and poorly organized system described as “broken.”
Led by former Chief Justice Lise Maisonneuve, the commission issued nearly 100 calls to action that range from immediately increasing funding to the sport system, to a long-term goal of creating a “centralized sport entity” to oversee sport in Canada.
‘Canadians expect change’: Justice Lise Maisonneuve on the Future of Sport in Canada
That entity should come in the form of a Crown corporation, the report suggests.
The idea of creating an organization with one vision for sport across the country is one that Shoemaker said deserves some attention.
“As an organization that has in my entire time here been focusing on filling the gaps in the sports system, investment gaps, trying to exert leadership where we can show leadership on areas like safe sport, that recommendation speaks to us,” he said.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has said his government plans to revamp funding for Canadian athletes, with plans to tackle the issue “very deliberately” over the next six months.
Shoemaker doesn’t yet know what that will look like, but was encouraged to hear the prime minister reference both the playground and the podium.
“What I take from that to mean is that he understands the linkage between high-performance sport and grassroots: that you can’t have one without the other, that you need investment in these awesome athletes that represent us on the world stage, that do us so proud, that give us this incredible sense of patriotism in every competition they’re in,” Shoemaker said.
“But that needs to also fuel a grassroots system that is broadly accessible, that takes advantage of the benefits of sport for a broad swath of our population.”
The 2024 federal budget earmarked a $35 million increase in funding for athletes through the Athlete Assistance Program over a five-year span.
While that was welcome news to athletes, any additional money is quickly cancelled out by expenses that national sport organizations can no longer afford to cover, such as team fees, according Maxwell Lattimer, an Olympic rower who competed for Canada in both Rio and Tokyo.
“It’s making sport a little bit inaccessible, especially high-performance sport,” said Lattimer, who is the vice chair of the Canadian Olympic Committee’s Athletes’ Commission.
“I think that it makes our athletes that participate not reflect the best version of what Canada can be on the international scale.”
The report was also critical of Own the Podium, which was created ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver to maximize the number of medals won by Canadian athletes.
The Canadian Olympic Committee now uses Own the Podium as a technical advisor that provides support on where funding should go.
“While some praised its contribution to international performance, others criticized its strong emphasis on medal outcomes, and its influence over sport organizations’ priorities,” the report says. “Some criticized Own the Podium for placing a disproportionate emphasis on Olympic athletes to the detriment of Paralympic athletes.”
But Shoemaker argued that you can be committed to both safe sport and the pursuit of excellence in high-performance sport.
“Those things are not mutually exclusive,” he said.
Report finds chronic underfunding and widespread maltreatment in Canadian sport
For Lattimer, the report comes with optimism. He said athletes who spoke to the commission felt their experiences were heard and validated during the process. He’s also been part of a working group that’s been brainstorming what a new sport entity could look like.
“I’m quite hopeful,” Lattimer said. “I think that this report is coming at a very pivotal time for Canadian sport.”
And while he agrees an increase to funding is urgently needed, he believes it can’t come without “transformative change.”
“You’d be pouring more money into a leaky sieve because the system isn’t maximized for efficiency and isn’t maximized to deliver value to athletes and sports stakeholders,” he said.
