'At the brink of falling apart': Sport organizations hope new government heeds urgent call for funding

At the end of a successful Summer Olympics in Paris last year, David Shoemaker issued a stark warning.

Canadians took home 27 medals from France after standout performances in swimming, beach volleyball and track and field, to name a few.

The Canadian Olympic Committee CEO said he believed Canada has the potential to do more, but that he worried the athletes' full potential won't be unlocked without more resources from the federal government.

"I worry about performance in Milano Cortina and certainly for LA [in 2028]," Shoemaker said that day.

"There hasn't been an increase in the core funding of the national sports organizations, the 62 federally-funded national sports organizations, in 19 years. They are having to do so much more with so much less, including the demands upon them to create a safe and barrier-free healthy sports system that we all want so badly."

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Fast forward almost 10 months and Canadians have a new government, led by a new Prime Minister, Mark Carney.

The new person in charge of the sports portfolio is a familiar face in the Canadian sports world: Adam van Koeverden, the retired kayaker who owns four Olympic medals, including gold in the K-1 500-metre from the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.

There's no minister of sport in this government. Koeverden is the secretary of state for sport, part of a two-tiered cabinet created by Carney.

He'll also have to navigate what's been described as a safe-sport crisis across the country. The Future of Sport in Canada Commission will report back in March, and van Koeverden, who gave his own recommendations to the panel earlier this year, will guide how the government will respond to its findings.

Perhaps even bigger than all of that is preserving what sport means to Canadians at a time when that identity is under threat like never before. It's a tone both the Canadian Olympic Committee and Canadian Paralympic Committee struck in a joint statement released after the new cabinet was named in May.

"As we face an unprecedented crisis of national identity, this portfolio will be critical in achieving this government's urgent nation building priorities," the statement said. "Sport unites Canadians like nothing else can – bridging geography, language, and politics."

When it comes to nation building, Nathan Bombrys sees a role for rugby.

The Canadian women's rugby union team is ranked second in the world heading into the sport's World Cup in England, which begins in August. Bombrys, who is Rugby Canada's CEO, believes the Canadian women have a shot at winning the tournament.

"If you follow the sport of rugby, it's literally planting a flag where it doesn't belong, and we have a team capable of doing that," he said.

But the women's team has been fundraising just to pay for proper training. It would go toward things like holding training camps and accessing mental performance coaching.

Even if they're successful in reaching the $1-million fundraising goal, Bombrys expects Canada will have one of the lowest budgets in the entire tournament.

Performing well at that tournament, which is one of the biggest in the sporting world, would certainly fall under the nation-building category.

Rugby Canada is also looking to see more corporate sponsors involved in the sport.

Without more money, the future looks different. Bombrys said he's already having to make difficult decisions that affect athletes and programming.

"Will we still play on the global stage? Probably," he said. "But wouldn't we like to be competitive and represent Canada well? Without that support, it's going to be harder and harder to do that."

For Olympic athletes across Canada, funding is the number one issue, according to Philippe Marquis, a two-time Olympian in freestyle skiing who serves as the chair of the Canadian Olympic Committee's Athletes' Commission.

Marquis was happy to see van Koeverden receive the sports file, and like Shoemaker, he feels a sense of urgency.

"Sport organizations are at the brink of falling apart with the lack of funding and the resources," he said.

"Everyone is tight."

The way he sees it, national sport organizations and athletes are both trying to survive. For sport organizations, like Rugby Canada, it's having the resources to properly structure and deliver sport to athletes.

The 2024 federal budget increased the monthly living and training allowances under the Athlete Assistance Program, commonly known as carding, by about 23 per cent, retroactive to April 2024.

"Was it sufficient? Not necessarily, and it has to be indexed with inflation and obviously what's going on around the world with cost of living," Marquis said.

The sports portfolio is nothing new to van Koeverden. Beyond his own career as an athlete, van Koeverden was Parliamentary secretary to ministers responsible for sport over two Parliaments.

"It's been a joy and a huge privilege, but it's also been tough," van Koeverden said a few days into his new job.

"It's a lot of work and I'm embracing all of it. But sometimes it's hard when you achieve a goal because you recognize that there's just so many expectations and work that you've got to do in order to achieve the good outcomes, the reason that you get involved."

Exactly what Carney would like his government to accomplish when it comes to sport isn't yet clear. The topic didn't appear in the Liberal platform, nor has there been a mandate letter released for the sport portfolio.

Van Koeverden said he's encouraged by how frequently Carney, who was a hockey goaltender in college, talks about sport.

"I'm really, really excited because Mark Carney has clearly articulated his love and his passion for sport, physical activity and recreation in Canada," van Koeverden said.

Whether Carney's government will increase funding of national sport organizations and multisport service organizations — such as the Canadian Olympic Committee, Canadian Paralympic Committee and U Sports — to the level that leaders like Shoemaker are calling for remains to be seen.

But van Koeverden agreed he would advocate for an increase in core funding for national sport organizations, describing it as "critical."

He also agreed that carding funding should be indexed with inflation, even though budgeting for that could be "a bit ambiguous."

But just as important is funding the bottom of the pyramid, van Koeverden said, which helps get more people, including kids, playing sport.

In his mind, funding sport at a grassroot level will help foster more Sidney Crosbys and Christine Sinclairs at the top of the pyramid.

But keeping the most talented athletes on the ice, field or court, and helping them achieve their potential, is also part of the puzzle.

"We continue to advocate to the federal government for an increase in funding [for national sport organizations]," Shoemaker told CBC Sports during the election campaign this past spring.

"We think we're making a strong case. We think we're getting through. But only time will tell."