This op-ed article was co-authored by Ottawa Sport Council Chair Mathieu Fleury and University of Ottawa Telfer School of Management Professor Milena M. Parent
You can now read the Final Report from the Future of Sport in Canada Commission here.
The Ottawa Sport Council has also sent a letter to Ontario Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport Neil Lumsden advocating for a multi-ministerial approach that aligns sport, health, education and municipal priorities to advance a more cohesive, resilient and well-coordinated sport system that supports community well-being.
Over the past weeks, as the applause faded from the Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games, Canada has witnessed something extraordinary. Though Canadian athletes brought home 21 medals, this haul fell short of the 30 predicted, and a national conversation has since emerged, led not by politicians or administrators, but by our athletes themselves. Olympic and Paralympic athletes — the top one percent who represent us, unite us, and make us feel something deep and shared — have stepped forward with courage and clarity to speak about the unsustainable pressures under which they train, compete, and live. Plainly, the current situation is not sustainable: if something doesn’t change, Canada will keep tumbling down the medals table.
Athletes’ voices matter because they reveal truths that only lived experience can articulate. Their experiences matter because they expose the realities behind the performances that inspire us. And their leadership is powerful, necessary, and deeply Canadian, because it reflects a willingness to speak openly about systemic challenges that can no longer be dismissed or deferred.
We want to acknowledge not only the athletes themselves, but also the Canadian Olympic Committee, as well as all the parents, coaches and performance partners who have helped bring this conversation to the forefront. Their willingness to elevate difficult truths has allowed the country to see what insiders have understood for years: the Canadian sport system is straining under its own weight and is no longer equipped to meet the demands placed upon it.
This moment calls for more than a band-aid solution. It calls for more than a narrow intervention targeted at one part of the system, which would be to increase funding to national athletes and sport organizations. Beyond a sustained increase in funding – which is still important as it takes 10 years to develop a high-performance athlete – it calls for structural change: change grounded in honesty, aligned across jurisdictions, and focused on the long‑term health of Canadians, communities and the athletes who represent them.
Canadians Want to Be Active. They Just Need the Spaces to Do It.
The discussion sparked by our athletes is not only about medals or podiums; it is about the conditions that allow a population to move, grow, connect, and thrive. The places where children first experience the joy of play, where teens discover team identity, and where adults return for health, connection, and belonging are the same places that seed the pathway to excellence. When those spaces are missing, outdated, or over‑subscribed, participation narrows, inequities widen, and the pipeline that leads to the podium dries up at its source. Canadians are asking for more chances to be active in their daily lives.
They are not asking for a new idea. They are asking for spaces where the idea can live.
A Nation of 40 Million Cannot Rely on Infrastructure Built for a Nation of 20 Million.
For decades, Canada has depended on a backbone of rinks, pools, gymnasiums, tracks, fields, and community centres constructed for a much smaller country. Many were built for Canada’s centenary in 1967. Those facilities were visionary in their day, and they shaped generations of healthy, connected Canadians.
Today, many are well past their intended lifespan and can no longer meet modern standards for safety, accessibility and energy efficiency. Meanwhile, usage pressures and costs continue to climb alongside population growth and demographic change. It is neither realistic nor responsible to expect a contemporary sport system to thrive atop an infrastructure base designed for another era. Relying on infrastructure built in 1967 brings predictable results: unmet demand, frustrated families, over‑stretched municipalities, poor training conditions, and a high‑performance system that pays the downstream price.
Provinces Are Drowning in Health Costs. Cities Are Struggling with Aging Infrastructure. Sport Is and Must Be Part of the Solution.
Across Canada, provinces are contending with rising health‑care expenditures, worsening youth mental‑health indicators, and the social isolation that undermines community resilience. At the same time, cities are struggling to maintain aging recreation facilities, figuring out how to replace deteriorating structures, and wanting to serve growing populations with buildings and fields that are already booked wall‑to‑wall. The consequences are waitlists, user fees, and lost opportunities for the very people most likely to benefit from movement, connection, and mentorship.
Sport, physical activity and recreation infrastructure is health infrastructure. It is also mental‑health infrastructure, community infrastructure, and nation‑building infrastructure.
When communities have modern, accessible spaces, participation rises, youth find supportive peer networks, older adults maintain independence, newcomers connect faster, and public‑healthcare burdens ease over time. According to the Canadian Fitness and Lifestyle Research Institute (CFLRI) and the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association (CPRA), physical inactivity cost an estimated $3.9 billion to the Canadian health system in 2022 alone.
The most effective preventive intervention sits in plain sight: build the places where daily activity is normal, convenient, and enjoyable, and Canada will see healthier people, safer neighbourhoods, and a more resilient sport pathway. Reducing Canadians’ physical inactivity by just 10% would save our healthcare system $629 million per year according to CFLRI and CPRA.
Provinces seeking to bend the health‑care cost curve and cities asking to reframe infrastructure priorities can come together through the same solution. The demographic math and the health reality both say the same thing: the status quo is not sustainable.
We Don’t Need a New Idea. We Need a New Centennial‑Level Mobilization.
Canada already proved what is possible when vision meets commitment. The 1967 centennial investments transformed the country by building spaces that still carry many communities today. The answer to our current problem is not novelty; it is renewed scale and seriousness. We need a new centennial‑level mobilization that treats sport, physical activity and recreation infrastructure with the weight it deserves, and that aligns federal leadership, provincial policy, municipal planning, and school‑board capacity behind a single, long‑term goal: healthy, active, connected Canadians, and a sport system capable of building and sustaining excellence.
Such a mobilization must renew aging facilities and build new ones where gaps are clear. It must ensure that equity, safety, accessibility, Indigenous inclusion, and environmental efficiency are designed in from the start. It must provide stable, multi‑year funding so that local projects can move from vision to ribbon‑cutting without falling into a cycle of short‑term grants and cost overruns. And it must track outcomes that matter to the public: higher participation rates, improved youth well‑being, reduced health‑care strain, stronger community cohesion, and more coherent pathways into competitive sport.
Sport, Physical Activity and Recreation Start in Communities, but They Advance Through Campuses.
Community centres, local rinks, city pools, and school fields are where participation begins, identities form, and confidence takes root. To grow and compete, Canadian athletes rely on a crucial middle layer that the national conversation has too often overlooked: our high schools, colleges, and universities.
These campuses are the bridge between community participation and high‑performance ambition. They provide coaching expertise, sport science, strength and conditioning, competition platforms, and a culture that balances education with elite pursuit. They are also hubs for research, innovation, and coach development that benefit the entire system.
A credible infrastructure strategy must therefore connect community facilities to schools, college and university environments and onward to provincial and national training centres in a coherent, accessible pathway. Campus facilities should be renewed and expanded not only for varsity programs, but also for the millions of students, staff, and neighbours who rely on them for health and belonging. When campuses thrive as shared civic assets, the sport ecosystem gains capacity, continuity, and credibility.
A System Worthy of Our Athletes Requires a Foundation Worthy of the Nation.
The leadership shown by our Olympic athletes and by the Canadian Olympic Committee during the Milano-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games has brought the country to an inflection point. Their honesty has exposed the fragility of a system that depends on outdated infrastructure and inconsistent investment.
But it has also revealed a way forward.
If we align our jurisdictions, modernize our facilities, and rebuild the sport system from the community up through the post‑secondary and national levels, we can deliver a stronger, healthier, more competitive Canada. The upcoming report and recommendation of the Future of Sport in Canada Commission can guide the reform of federation structures, but real transformation requires a physical foundation capable of supporting the ambitions of a modern, growing country.
Reforming national sport organizations and improving direct support to athletes remain essential, but they cannot be the only levers we pull. Governance reform should proceed with clarity of roles, accountability, transparency, and reduced duplication, guided by forthcoming national recommendations. Yet none of that will achieve its full potential unless it rests on a physical foundation capable of serving a modern, growing country. Excellence cannot depend on scarcity, outdated buildings, or uneven access determined by postal code. It must be built on a base of spaces where Canadians live active lives, where youth discover sport safely and joyfully, where talent matures with support, and where communities feel pride in the places that belong to them.
Canada has done this once before. We can do it again. The path forward is clear: build the spaces, align the system, and let Canadians — from community to campus to podium — do the rest. And this time, we can build a system that matches the scale of our population, the needs of our communities, and the potential of our athletes.
The moment demands it. The country deserves it.