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A PARTNERSHIP FOR CANADA’S SPORTS HALL OF FAME A SUBMISSION TO THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE August 12, 2011 Submitted by Claire Buffone-Blair President and CEO, Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame 169 CANADA OLYMPIC ROAD SW, CALGARY, AB T3B 5R5 T: 403.776.1080
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY For almost 200 years, sport in Canada has been one of the most important unifying elements connecting Canadians from coast to coast to coast. It has been both an inter-personal connection and the national source of hope, pride and joy in our accomplishments. A nation that cherishes and promotes physically activity, whose citizens learn values and skills through play and sport, is one that is more energetic, healthier, with less health care costs, and is more confident of competing in business, nationally and on the world stage. The ‘Own The Podium’ attitude so successful in preparing athletes for the recent 2010 Vancouver Winter Games did resonate favourably with Canadian leaders in business and other sectors who support this ambitious and aggressive approach to be excellent. It is the request of Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame (CSHoF), now led by the recent leaders of the Own The Podium program, to partner with Sport Canada (Heritage Canada) and others, to utilize our sport heroes and their compelling stories to stimulate Canadians - families, communities, youth - to embrace sport and its inherent values, and to take pride in achieving excellence in all that they do, in their professions and their professions and their lives. Sport Canada (Heritage Canada) funds
more than 60 national sport organisations and many other national
projects, costing
approximately $200 million a year. For more than forty years, Canada’s Sports
Hall of Fame has
not requested/received funding from the
federal government for its operations. CSHoF has recently generated
$40 million to finance the building of
a new national sport museum and hall of fame in Calgary, and to finance
start-up operations. The facility opened Canada Day, July 1, 2011. We have
created a brand new organization that Recommendation 1: Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame requests a partnership with the federal government, via Sport Canada, to jointly fund the future operational and programming activities of Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. We request an annual contribution from Sport Canada of $3 million, commencing in 2012-13. This amount is about half the overall amount required annually, and is consistent with federal contributions to other national sport organisations with national mandates. IMPORTANCE OF SPORT TO CANADIAN CULTURE, COMMUNITIES AND ECONOMY Canada is one of the world’s greatest sporting nations. Statistics attest to that, with Canada currently ranked in the top handful of the 205 nations that compete at winter and summer Olympic Games. Canadians, far from being the dour, safe, temperate, unimaginative folk who populate so much of our historical writing, have been, in terms of their life in sport, marvellously inventive, daring and successful, and in a word, joyous. For a nation of relatively few people, scattered across an immense land, Canada has a rich athletic history. Howie Morenz inspires the Canadians to yet another Stanley Cup. Nancy Green skies to several world and Olympic victories. Canadian rowers, swimmers, equestrian teams, boxers, marksmen, curlers, figure skaters, football players, lacrosse players, divers, triathletes, runners, to name but a few, have helped unite our passions as a nation and have provided Canadians with international respect. The success of our winter athletes at the recent 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver, including winning the most Gold medals of any of the 85 competing nations, adds a recent exclamation point to our claim of success, and most importantly, to the importance of sport, our athletes and their success, to Canadians across this land. This interest and involvement of Canadians in sport is not recent. Indeed, in the last two hundred years, sport has been one of the most important factors connecting communities and Canadians. Canadians from all parts of the country, from villages to the big cities, with each other. Perhaps the grandest accomplishment of the 19th century in Canada was the completion of the CPR railroad across the prairies to the Pacific. Almost the first group to travel from the west coast to the east, in 1885, was a lacrosse team from the community now called New Westminster, to compete against the big teams from Toronto and Montreal. Between 1840 to 1890, Montrealers gave us and the world the organized team games of lacrosse and ice hockey; they were involved in the beginnings of both Canadian and American football; the idea of a winter carnival, with snowshoeing, tobogganing, figure and speed skating was theirs; they pioneered what were to become international bonspiels as well as national rifle matches and international rifle teams. These are the compelling stories, an important essence of our Canadian culture, that Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame strives to promote, to honour the past, and to encourage future youth to stive for excellence in sport and life. SCOPE OF SPORT IN CANADA TODAY Community sport and recreation represents the largest citizen and community participation activity in Canada. In the 2007 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating[1] , more than one in ten Canadians volunteered for sports and recreation (11%). Over 2 million individuals fill some 5.3 million volunteer positions within 34,000 sport and recreation organizations.[2] There is no other part of the “voluntary sector” (which is made up of 161,000 charities and non-profits, has 1.2 million paid people and 6.5 million volunteers) that does so much with so little as
The sport sector employs over 260,000 Canadians or about 2% of the jobs in Canada, and annual household spending on sport exceeds $15.8 billion/year or about 1.2% of Canada’s GDP.[4] ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND COMMUNITY BENEFITS OF SPORT Sport engages people, and a society of engaged people is arguably one of the most powerful mediators we have against fears about, and impacts of crime, public health issues, education performance, peace and tolerance among peoples, and economic and social prosperity. Economic prosperity in our communities depends on vibrant, energetic and healthy individuals, and sport and physical activity assist in his desirable goal. Sport:
Sport participation also builds personal qualities, such as courage and the capacity to commit to a goal or purpose, as well as values such as honesty, respect for others, self-discipline, and a sense of fair play. These characteristics and skills help people play a more positive role in their communities and family life: “Skills gains are among the most important benefits of sport participation because they contribute to personal development and well-being, more productive work performance and improved business performance, which underpins[5] The economic health of a nation cannot be divorced from the physical health of its citizens, since the direct and indirect costs of disease and disability place a substantial burden on productivity and the economy. Direct health care costs due to physical inactivity range between $2.1 and $5.3 billion per year, consuming as much as 5% of annual health care spending. As a recent report by the Conference Board of Canada concludes, “Increasing sport participation as a strategy for improving the health of Canadians could significantly reduce national health-care costs.”[6] According to the Romanow Commission, a 10% reduction in the number of inactive Canadians would save $150 million per year in direct health care costs[7] The World Health Organization concludes that increasing physical activity is the most cost-effective and sustainable way for a nation to reduce its burden of lifestyle related diseases and improve its economic performance:[8] “Even though there has been great progress in the treatment of non-communicable diseases and in the pharmacological control of many risk factors, from a public health point of view, the greatest potential is in influencing the risk-factor distribution in the population through general lifestyle changes, notably in diet and physical activity. This is a cost-effective and sustainable way for controlling such diseases. Successful primary prevention not only reduces human suffering and increases economic productivity, but also limits the growing cost of treatment. ” PARTNERING TO CREATE A NATIONAL SPORT PROMOTION ORGANISATION Over the past 40 years, successive governments in Canada, via their sport agency Sport Canada, have assisted in creating and financing a number of new organisations to address specific national issues in sport, fitness, and recreation. These have included ParticipACTION (health, wellness,fitness) on one end of the continuum, to Own The Podium (to prepare Canada’s international sport teams) on the other end.There is need ‘in the middle ground’ to coordinate and lead the national promotion of the importance of sport to our communities, families and children. This is where Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame fits in, providing leadership and creating partnerships with Sprt Canada and many others. For two decades, CSHoF has had few resources, few staff, and no facility to display national artifacts. The key individuals who led the very successful Own The Podium program are now leading CSHoF. Forty million dollars has been raised to date to create a new national sport museum which opened Canada Day, July 1st, 2011, in Calgary. This stunning new facility features eleven exhibit galleries representing 60 sports, over 50 interactive displays, a 120-seat theatre, and an Education and Resource Centre. It will serve Canada ’s national interests by being a world class centre for education, interactivity, and discovery. Already, school programs will be launched in September 2011 for regional schools. Outreach initiatives will soon be developed for Canadian communities, and community access programs will be initiated to ensure all citizens can experience our national sport treasures. Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame’s mission is to promote the importance of sport to Canadian families and communities by sharing the compelling stories of our outstanding achievements in Canadian sport. The goals of CSHoF
All Canadians from coast to coast to coast are the targets for our pan-Canadian programs. Over the past three years, CSHoF’s new national museum and hall of fame, new staff and the governance and organisational processes and policies have been put in place. Forty million dollars has been raised to build the facility, its exhibits and technologies. What is needed now is additional sustainable operational funding to deliver the national leadership, partnerships, coordination and programming for a national sport promotion program directed at children, families, schools and communities. WHAT WILL CSHOF DO, AND HOW WILL IT DO IT? Just as they did with Own The Podium, the leaders of CSHoF will work with many partners (e.g. governments, corporations, sports schools, colleges and universities, provincial halls of fame, others) to help them tell the story of their accomplishments, history and contributions to Canadian sport and culture. Very few of these sport organisations have the resources to undertake national promotion of their sport, and none have a mandate to do this on behalf of all national sports. CSHoF has many ‘tools’ with which to undertake this national leadership role:
CSHOF MEETS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CRITERIA FOR SUPPORT CSHoF has been in existence since 1971 as a legally recognized national organisation (and as a registered charity). It has not received (or requested, to our knowledge) in those forty years any federal government support. The new Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame is recognized as eligible to receive federal funds, as it supports several of the goals of the federal government’s Canadian Sport Policy. The new Hall of Fame has been open for only two months, and early estimates of its annual operating costs are $3.5 million. In addition, annual programming costs (creative and media costs, technology platforms, outreach displays, promotional programming) are estimated to be an additional $3 million per year, for a projected total annual budget of $6.5 million. CSHoF, as a national organisation, has clearly demonstrated its ability to raise significant funding from corporate and other partners, but needs a partnership with Sport Canada to assist with creating sustainable operational and national programming. We can’t fulfill our mandate without a government partnership. Recommendation 1: Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame requests a partnership with the federal government, via Sport Canada, to jointly fund the future operational and programming activities of Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. We request an annual contribution from Sport Canada of $3 million, commencing in 2012-13. This amount is about half the overall amount required annually, and is consistent with federal contributions to other national sport organisations with national mandates. Who will benefit from this initiative? Families, communities and young Canadians! Promoting significant Canadian sport achievements will help families to celebrate Canada, our culture and heritage. It will encourage families and communities to become more active, and thus healthier, by their involvement in sport. It will teach children and their parents the values of discipline, hard work and striving for excellence in life, values that characterize the success of Canada’s sport heroes. We thank you for your consideration. [1] Caring Canadians, Involved Canadians: Highlights from the 2007 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating Published by authority of the Minister responsible for Statistics Canada: Minister of Industry, 2009. [2] Statistics Canada, Small Business and Special Surveys Division, Cornerstones of Community: Highlights of the National Survey of Nonprofit and Voluntary Organizations, September 2004. URL: . http://www.statcan.ca:8096/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=61-533-XIE#formatdisp. Accessed April 2006. [3] People in Sport, Groupe le sport est important, janvier 2006 [4] The Conference Board of Canada, Strengthening Canada: The Socio-economic Benefits of Sport Participation in Canada, byM Bloom, M Grant, DWatt, August t 2005. [5]The Conference Board of Canada, Strengthening Canada: The Socio-economic Benefits of Sport Participation in Canada, byM Bloom, M Grant, DWatt, August t 2005. [6]The Conference Board of Canada, Strengthening Canada: The Socio-economic Benefits of Sport Participation in Canada, byM Bloom, M Grant, DWatt, August t 2005. [7] Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada, Building on Values: The Future of Health Care in Canada - Final Report, November 2002. [8]World Health Organization, Executive Board EB109/14, 109th Session, “Diet, physical activity and health,” Provisional agenda item 3.10,24 November 2001. URL: item2002. |