Sport Canada
-
Upload
john-sutherland -
Category
Documents
-
view
221 -
download
0
Transcript of Sport Canada
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
1/21
JOHN ALAN SUTHERLAND 24/01/12
OWN THE PODIUM
PROGRAM
GLOBALIZATION,INTERNATIONALIZATION AND SECTOR LEADERSHIP: THE
PARADIGM BEHIND CURRENT NATIONAL SPORTS POLICY IN CANADA
Since 2003 Canadian Federal sports policy has been shaped by the pressures of internationalization and
globalization through the converging interests of public and private sector leadership to sell the
Canadian brand globally through the sports accomplishments of elite Canadian athletes. National
sports organizations have been willing to relinquish autonomy over their sport and cooperate in this
policy in order to receive large infusions of public and private monies. The culmination of this
convergence process was reached at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver when Canada won
the most gold medals of any host country. In an effusive display of nationalistic chest thumping by the
national media , leadership of all sectors announced that Canada had finally arrived as a force to be
reckoned with globally. However the costs of this policy to the needs of Canadian civil society and sport
in general throughout Canada have been high.
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
2/21
1
AU # 2980775
GOVN 500
TERM PAPER
DR. SEAN RYAN
FALL 2011/ WINTER 2012
INDIVIDUALIZED COURSE
January 26/2012
Canada has won more gold medals at these (Vancouver2010 Winter Olympic) games than any
other nation, including powerhouses like the United States, Germany and Russia. What this
means is that the Own the Podium campaign has been an unmitigated success, something (in)
which all Canadians should feel an immense pride. Pride in our government for recognizing
(that) our athletes deserve the best funding, the best facilities and the best sense of ambition this
nation can provide them with; pride in the incredible achievement of our athletes to believe that
they are among the very best in the world, deserving of Olympic champion status; and pride in
ourselves as a nation that can stage a world class event, despite weather conditions that were less
than ideal , despite unwarranted criticisms from near and far, because Canada is a nation that has
always believed in itself , no matter what the rest of the world may believe (Ramphal, 2010).
Contained within this jingoistic rant is the current Canadian public sports policy backed by all
three sectors.
This public sport policy is built on a paradigm of elitism and olympism
(Hoberman, 2004). It is a product ofboth the effects of globalization on Canada and the
internationalization (Doern, Pal, & Tomlin, 1996) of the Canadian sport culture. It is funded
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
3/21
2
by the public sector represented by Sport Canada (Macintosh & Whitson, 1990), an agency of
the Federal government. It is supported financially by donations from the private sector
represented by large multinational and national corporate sponsors, who spent millions in
advertising the Vancouver games and by the media who followed them like lapdogs for the
advertising dollars. It is administered by the voluntary sector leadership which is represented by
the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and the multiple National Sports Organizations
(NSOs) which represent the various sports which sent athletes to the games.
How did we arrive at this current national sports policy? It is clear from an
examination of all the facts leading to the creation of the Own the Podium programthat what
occurred is the process of the convergence of leadership interests (Kellerman, 1999) between the
three sectors which led to a new institution in order to accomplish public policy goals
(Kellerman). The decisions taken by the Federal government leadership were as a result of Sport
Canada officials consultations (Shaw, 2008) with the voluntary sector leadership (COC and
NSOs) under pressure exerted by the private sector leadership including both the national and
international corporations and the leadership of the International Olympic committee (IOC).
While the apparent success of the Games for Canada in terms of medals won might seem
an unmitigated success as claimed by its flag waving supporters, the current sport policy
raises many serious issues which have not been discussed. Citizen engagement has not been
present in debating which sectors interests does this policy serve; what has been gained and
what has been lost by Canadian civil society as a result of this policy; what does this policy
represent in terms ofgovernance and control over public sports policy in Canada by each of the
three sectors; how have globalization, and internationalization including world trade, and
financial practices shaped this policy; and finally where does Canada go from this point into
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
4/21
3
the future with a policy that is prepared to sacrifice the notion of sport for all in favour of
massive funding for high performance athletes?
Political leadership is often described as the art of finding out what the voting public
wants and then acting, when in government, (Hargreaves, 1985) in such a way as to appear that it
is responding to these wishes. However once in power political leaders are not necessarily bound
by what the public wants nor to necessarily consult with the public. Leaders in the public sector
today believe that in areas of social policy the voting public is anti-globalist and that leaders and
governments have to act contrary to public opinion in the best interests of the nation (Doern, Pal,
& Tomlin, 1996). The extent to which governments and leaders encourage citizen engagement in
policy development depends on the degree to which they feel more comfortable pushing a policy
without engaging in public dialogue. This observation applies equally as well to the formation of
public policy on sport as to any other government policy.
National Governments have varying philosophies as to how the notion of sport can be
used to meet public needs in ways such as increasing nationalism, improving citizen health,
preparing youth for challenges as they enter the adult world, helping redevelop depressed
communities and even increasing a nations prestige on the world stage. Sport has in the
development of the modern nation state served as a means to promote all these goals in an equal
way. When governments have sought to formulate national sport policies it is usually when
government agendas have sought to portray the advantages of their political system externally.
Whether it is the Cuban leaders trying to sell the image of sport under a Communist State
(Scarpaci, Segre, & Coyula, 2002) or Stephen Harper as prime minister congratulating winning
Canadian medal winners in front of television cameras the gestures are political and for
international as well as national consumption.
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
5/21
4
But central to whatever policy underlies apublic leaders or governments action there
continues to be an expectation by civil society that the public sector will serve as the guardian
of the broad public interest (Paqet, 1999). It is therefore difficult to understand how there can
be a lasting convergence between the public and the private sector on the issue of a national
public sport policy. Such a result has no likelihood of promoting a broad public benefit
(Houlihan, 2004). To the private sector sport is primarily a marketing opportunity medium to
advertise its product or services with the expectation that the more people watching will provide
a greater audience of consumers. To the private multinational corporation it matters little who
wins as long as the competition attracts the greatest number of viewers. After the event has
finished the fate of the nations youth is not an interest for the private sector unless it affects
sales of products or services. As a result there will always be a divergence of goals between the
public and private sector when we consider long range public policy goals.
But how do we define sport? Sport can include any activity involving physical movement
or physical motion. It can be any form of physical fitness undertaken for health, leisure, or
competition. It can be organized, individual, or directed by teachers in schools. It can be done
alone, in communities, within national or provincial borders or practiced at the international
level. Even the current Federal Child Fitness Credit Program recognizes activities throughout all
these areas as qualifying for child sport activity including everything from hockey to ballet, as
long as it is done in an organized way and payments are made to an organization for
participation.
Within the framework of the Canadian constitution, sport most often occurs at the
community or provincial level thus allowing provincial and local leaders and governments to
oversee athletic endeavors. The Federal government has traditionally involved itself at the
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
6/21
5
national level of sport as a co-ordinator of national and international activities providing funds
for national sport and fitness programs under the policy areas of health and fitness. This paper
examines current national public sport policy because traditionally NSOs deal with the Federal
government and policies set by these bodies filter down to affect sports at the local level. As will
be seen the role of the Federal government leadership in directing sport development has grown
as sport policy has become centered on promoting Canadian athlete achievement to the rest of
the world.
In order to understand how current Federal public sport policy has developed it is
necessary to understand that public sport policies are underpinned by particular interpretive
frameworks or paradigms (Sam & Jackson, 2004) which are pushed or promoted by
governments. Who creates these paradigms; how are they created; what drives them; and what
they are? These are all questions, the answers to which are vitally important to the understanding
of how public sport policy develops. Paradigms shape the construction of public policy
problems, alternative approaches to resolving these problems and an acceptable government
intervention (Sam & Jackson, p. 205). Policy paradigms are attempts by public leadership to
establish causal relationships and to suggest how policy objectives might best be achieved (Sam
& Jackson, p. 207). Their importance lies in how paradigms link means and ends. Specific
means such as those adopted from business and managerial leadership, including re-engineering,
privatization and strategic planning, are tied to ends or goals of efficiency (Alvesson, 1991).
These represent the current domination of public sector leadership by the industrial leadership
paradigm (Kellerman, 1999).
In sport the use of this new public governanceparadigm, which includes preferences
for business models, strategic planning and marketing by the public sector, have been promoted
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
7/21
6
by public leadership as both the means to address problems and as worthy ends in themselves.
Policy paradigms include both descriptive and prescriptive elements (Sam & Jackson, p. 207).
These paradigms function to establish the broad goals behind policy, the related problems or
puzzles that public leaders have to solve to get there and in large measure, the kind of
instruments that can be used to attain these goals (Hall, 1993). The propagation of policy
paradigms may be equally motivated by what is deemed culturally appropriate (Sam & Jackson,
p. 208). Paradigms are as well referred to as socially constructed and contested political
symbols (Stone, 1997).
Paradigms provide a useful analytical framework to understanding how policy is
constructed by public leadership. Paradigms reflect the limitations specific to the construction of
policy problems because of how leadership uses them to frame issues and causal descriptions,
Further they are useful to help convey the difficulties leaders in the public sector have to contend
with regarding the nature of intervention and the instruments proposed to address public
concerns. Finally there is the conceptual place of paradigms in linking levels of discourse among
the three sectors. They are a useful middle ground to link ideological theories of state/society
(such as neo-liberalism) with the field specific dominant ideas of public, private and volunteer
leaders and their related interest groups. There is an interplay between paradigms and ideologies
(Sam & Jackson, 2004). When viewing paradigms and policy it is important to acknowledge the
pressures of the interests of the private and voluntary sectors which are seeking satisfaction as
well as the interests of civil society at large. Public sector leaders have to balance these
competing interests in order to develop effective and promotable policies.
How have paradigms helped frame public sector sport policy in Canada? Prior to the
1980s Canadas national public sport policy could be characterized under the theme of Sport
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
8/21
7
for All in which sport was promoted by public leadership based on a paradigm of bringing
social and health benefits to individuals and society as a whole (Keech & McFee, 2000). Sport
policy was based on a paradigm which had as one of its goals urban regeneration linked with
an ideology of welfarism and the welfare state which public leadership backed. Sport policy
evolved from the general to the particular (Hargreaves, 1985). This blended concept of sport with
fitness was best exemplified at that time by a prime minister, who was an active canoeist and
who loved the personal individual experience of combining sport with nature (Zakus, 1996).
Sport was seen by most Canadians as an individual pursuit; divorced from state control and
dependent upon a persons own desire to remain fit and healthy and to select whatever type of
sport or physical activity would bring that result. Given these attitudes in the Federal government
it made perfect political sense for Canadas public leadership to frame a sport policy interrelated
with health and fitness for as many Canadians as possible. Participaction was a slogan, a
television program and a key ingredient in stressing this interrelationship of health, exercise and
sport. Its purpose was to encourage Canadians to get active and out of the house from in front of
the television set.
However this national public policy of valuing sport, as an activity for all, did not
produce gold medalists for Canada in either the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal nor the
1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary (Knight, MacNeil, & Donnelly, 2005). Was this failure
because Canadians were competing internationally more as a team of individual athletes relying
on their personal private sponsors and their earnings from regular day jobs to fund their training?
Or was it because these events occurred during the Cold War when success in international sport
was used by the Soviet Bloc countries to demonstrate their superior system with athletes who
trained year round with state support? The media wanted to make Canadians believe it was the
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
9/21
8
former. The low or absent medal count for Canadians from international competitions made it
difficult for the private and public sector media, especially television networks, to interest
Canadians into watching amateur sporting events in which Canadian athletes had little chance of
winning. Without large audiences of viewers television broadcasters could not attract corporate
advertisers. Without winners NSOs had trouble attracting corporate sponsors to invest in
facilities and athlete training for their particular sports. NSOs appealed to public sector
leadership for funding to fill the gap when private sector money was not forthcoming. At the
same time the private sector was expanding its business under the pressures of globalization and
internationalization. Private sector leadership determined that it required larger markets of
consumers and needed effective ways of advertising their products. Sports events were ideal
vehicles in which the private sector could market products but the issue was how to attract larger
viewing audiences to these events without the presence of competitive Canadian athletes.
Voluntary leadership in the NSOs needed to be incorporated into this policy in order to continue
to generate volunteer involvement in sport.
As a result of these factors and lobbying pressures from leadership in both private and
voluntary sectors the bureaucrats of the Federal governments agency, Sport Canada, held
numerous conferences and consultations with the leadership of NSOs to determine why Canada
was failing to produce winning performances from its athletes at international competitions. This
process followed the scenario described by Kellerman (p. 147) of public management in the
form of government bureaucracy making decisions which eventually would impact upon policy
making by leadership in the public sector.
The conclusions reached by the public managers in Sport Canada was that NSOs
throughout the country and in every sport needed to embrace rational planning for amateur
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
10/21
9
sports. This became the policy paradigm (Slack, Berrett, & Mistry, 1994) which succeeded in
shifting public sport policy in a different direction.
Rational planning which in theory had helped the private sector to become more
competitive domestically and internationally was becoming the new mantra of public bodies .
This paradigm ofrational planning for NSOs included both a causal description of a policy
problem-i.e. the disorganized amateurism of NSOs and their leadership in Canada, run in most
cases by volunteers, as being the hindrance to international success- and a preferred policy
solution including quadrennial planning under government supervision (Whitson & Macintosh,
1990). Embracing this paradigm by the public sector led to increased pressure by Sport Canada
on NSOs to adopt more businesslike approaches to their operations (Nixon, 2008). Rational
planning had the added advantage of allowing government officials in Sport Canada to control
the decisions for expenditures of public funds by the leadership of NSOs. In return for increased
public funding leadership of NSOs gave up their autonomy to set policy within their own sport
without government consent. As an accepted paradigm it became a reference point for further
policy behaviors for citizens and groups (Houlihan, 2004). The theory is that experts begin to
make professional claims to extend the paradigms application ; (government) bureaucrats
respond by channelling resources to ensure (what they believe are) sound program
implementation; politicians introduce symbols and rhetoric consistent with the paradigms
account of public purposes and governments role; and societal interests make their own
accommodations with the paradigm, some (such as private sector sponsors) obviously on terms
of their liking, others (voluntary sector NSOs) much more reluctantly to a compromise
(Bradford, 1999). A change in paradigm results in a significant shift in how programmatic or
administrative issues are dealt with in the future (Sam & Jackson, p. 206).
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
11/21
10
This policy to better coordinate sport came at a time when the public sector leadership
had also accepted the need for governments to privatize, contract out and decentralize services
and responsibilities (Sam & Jackson, p. 216). The mantra of the neo-liberal policies of
globalization included the belief that less government was better and that the forces of the private
sector marketplace were best placed to determine the shape of a society and its heritage
(Pannekoek, 2009).
But in sport as opposed to business there is an obvious contradiction between the public
sector trying to coordinate the activities of the sport sector while at the same time exhorting the
sports organizations and the athletes to perform better. This contradiction is unlikely to be
resolved by the mere use of words like coordination, leadership and integration in a sport policy
(Works, 2000). There cannot be control and command without centralized structures, just as
there cannot be public responsiveness without empowerment. But achieving coherent structures
and simultaneously encouraging specialized delivery are contradictory aims. From the
perspective of government the problem is that despite debates about appropriate balance neither
extreme is apt to be any more effective in achieving the broader goals of sport policy than the
other (Sam & Jackson, p. 217).
This new policy of rational planning for sports along the lines of successful private
sector management was believed capable of producing international sport winners. But creating
this policy involved little in the way of broad citizen engagement outside of the voluntary NSO
leadership and its discussions with the Federal bureaucracy. In fact as the focus of public
leadership narrowed to produce more high performance athletes the ties of sport to the local
community and to promoting the broad concepts of health and fitness were weakened . As this
policy of more organization began to be implemented through the 1990s into the twenty-first
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
12/21
11
century there was positive reinforcement for it by leadership in all three sectors. Government
pumped more public money into NSOs and distributed performance bonuses to athletes. All of
these led to modest successes at international competitions. But the biggest winners were the
fortunate NSOs that could convince the public sector that they were able to better organize their
affairs and therefore were entitled to more public funding. Organization, funding and results
were not necessarily synonymous. The overall effect of this change in sport policy was that
sports in this country came to be defined within parameters ofbeing bureaucratic, quantitative,
masculine, commodified and instrumental (Macintosh & Whitson, 1990).
After Vancouver-Whistler was awarded the 2010 Winter Games in 2003 the focus of
new national sport policy was narrowed even more in terms of increased funding by public
leadership toNSOs who could develop potential medal winners for the Winter Games. More
pressure on public sport policy in Canada came from another source-internationalization in the
form of the international sports community leadership both from the private and voluntary
sectors. Following the successful bid the International Olympic Committees (IOC) president
openly criticized Canadas previous performances in 1976 and 1988 as not representing a good
enough product for a host country i.e. suggesting that Canadas athletes were not able to compete
for medals with the worlds best (Shaw, 2008). Cynics said this criticism was prompted by the
International Olympic Committees thirst for increased television and sponsor revenues.
Following this criticism the leadership of the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) in
partnership with the leadership of the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) let it be
known at a meeting in Calgary in 2004 that a new paradigm for Canadian public sport policy was
needed. This would require increased government funding on selecting and supporting particular
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
13/21
12
sports and athletes who had the best chance of winning medals at the 2010 Winter Games. This
was the basis for the creation of the Own the Podium program.
The Own the Podium program as promoted by the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC)
was to make Canada the top medal winning nation at the 2010 games. An independent consultant
was contracted to analyze each sports objectives, provide recommendations on changes and
resources required and determine if the goals were achievable. After the report was received a
steering committee was created to manage implementation of the recommendations. Public
opinion was accessed through surveys to see if the general public supported a plan to fund elite
athletes who had the best chance of winning medals at the games. Those affirmative responses
were predicted given the frenzy of nationalism stirred up by the media.
Increased funds under the Own the Podium program were to be distributed to winter
sports based on annual report reviews and an accountability model. The consultants report
called for a $21 million annual increase in funding for winter sports over the 5 years preceding
the Winter Games in Vancouver with a total spending just by the public sector of $118 million.
This revised sport policy focusing on elite athletes advanced a pyramidal model of sport
development (i.e. where a broad base results in an elite) reinforcing globalizing neo-liberal
notions of society as a meritocracy (Sam & Jackson, p. 209). The government made no efforts
to address the ever existing tensions between elite sport and physical education. This increased
shift to focusing on high performance athletes came not only as a result of the global pressures
from the IOC but in general terms from the effects of globalization and internationalization
creating the need for national states to make a mark on the global scene.
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
14/21
13
It is clear that the Olympic Games are a precursor to the rampant spread of modern
globalism in the latter part of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century (McFee,
2000). The Olympic ideals described in such phrases as the burnishing ofa flabby and cramped
youth by sport by showing it wide horizons---horizons which ----will bring about a ferment of
international peace (Tomlinson, 1984) were an early manifestation of a globalizing force. In
fact the idea of using the Olympic games as a form of propaganda by the host nation and public
leadership to impress the world with the size and the efficiency of the Games and with the
accomplishments of its athletes (Graham, 1986) dates back to the Berlin Olympics of 1936 put
on by Hitler and the Nazis, if not before (Hoberman, 2004).
It is clear from the lavish displays put on by host nations and the increased levels of
nationalism among the host countrys press that the instrument of the Olympic Games as a
globalizing force does not depend upon whether they have remained true to the aspirations of
their founder. The important thing in life is not the victory but the contest; the essential thing is
not to have won but to have fought well (Shaw, 2008).These words of the founder of the
modern Olympic Games, Baron Pierre de Courbertin, (Tomlinson, 1984) portray an idealistic
international athletic competition with lofty virtues which appear to be directly opposite to the
goals set by the Own the Podium program with its pouring of large sums of money into
training elite Canadian athletes in order to win as many medals as possible.
Despite the fact that the universal nature of the rules and records of sport make the
Olympics a global phenomenon par excellence (Bale & Christensen, 2004) they do not prevent
host countries like Canada from milking every ounce of national pride out of the Games.The
results of the Own the Podium program in the Vancouver games were more than hoped for in
most of the competitions. The medal haul was greater in some areas than had been expected. But
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
15/21
14
after the euphoria of podium performances by Canadian athletes has died down and the medal
memories have faded where does future sport policy direction in Canada go?
The program had been expanded prior to 2010 to continue funding potential medal
winners up to the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, United Kingdom. However unlike
the Winter Games, Canada has never been a significant presence in the Summer Games except
for the rare personal performance of a committed athlete such as sprinter Donovan Bailey .
Combining this fact of a history of few medals in Summer Games with the traditional summer
holiday travels of Canadians the viewership for 2012 will be significantly reduced and the
private sector will not commit to donating the same level of funds as in 2010. The crunch will be
for the public sector as to how far public leadership will continue to fund high performance
athletes at the expense of other government programs. Obesity for young people in Canada has
increased and there is very little funding left in the public coffer to fund healthy programs for
Canadas youth who are not elite athletes.
Why is the public sector leadership continuing to pour millions of dollars into the
training of high performance athletes with the hope of garnering medals when these monies
could go into supporting sport and physical fitness on a broader scale to more Canadians at the
local level. Public sector leadership should not be fooled as to who benefits most from the
Olympic Games or any international competition. Critics of the Olympic Games have suggested
that the motives behind them have more to do with economic gains for societys private sector
elite as opposed to an athletic competition. The Olympic Games at the local level are all about
real estate (Shaw, p. 5). Unfortunately the myth of the Olympics being about sports is kept
alive in the mind of the public by saturation advertising dulling the background drumbeat of
scandals and misspent public funds, IOC members on the take, corrupt (competition) judges and
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
16/21
15
doped-up athletes (Shaw, p. 4). Even the agreement entered into with the International Olympic
Committee by the Canadian government and Canadian Sports bodies required among other
things payment of $225million for capital costs of sport and event venues, $55million payment
to a Legacy Endowment Fund, providing all security services and exempting the IOC from any
Canadian tax (Shaw). Under the leadership of Antonio Samaranch , the Olympic movement
became a powerful machine canalizing public money into private pockets-into multinational
enterprises, media corporations and Mafiosi. Olympism became a sort of reverse Robin Hood:
taking money from the poor-via media licences and public support-and giving it to the rich.
Olympic sport functioned as an enterprise of globalization, following commercial rationality
(Bale & Christensen, p. 74) .
As to fostering global relations between countries George Orwell said it best when he
wrote that I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between
nations------------At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare (Orwell, 1945). The
Games proved to be no impediment to prevention of the First and Second World Wars nor to
subsequent limited wars and terrorism.
What then drives public leaders and their bureaucratic managers to rush to fund
international competitions like the Olympic Games and elite athletes. Public leadership as well
as the public have a great respect for athletic winners whether in professional sport or in the
Olympics. This respect reaches a height of adoration that borders on idolatry (Shaw, p. 167) .
The phenomenon aptly known as jock sniffing seems mostly to reach its apogee among
middle aged men (Shaw, p. 167) which incidentally is the group most represented in the
leadership of all three sectors involved in modern day international sports. This is the emotional
basis for stressing the need to Own the Podiumhyping every medal into a collective jock
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
17/21
16
sniffing frenzy (Shaw, p. 168). If it were really about sports, wed all be celebrating the
amazing achievement of anyone able to perform at such a high level at all. (Shaw, p. 170). No,
its all about winning gold, silver or bronze and making their owners household celebrities at
home.
The media plays a major role in encouraging the cult of athlete admiration in order to
sell advertising to sponsors who want to associate themselves with winners and those celebrities
admired by the public. Most of what the average person knows about the Olympics in general
and the local bid comes from the corporate media (Shaw, p. 171). Globalization in regards to
the Olympics means that the worlds economy is not run for the benefit of the majority of those
on the planet (Shaw, p. 193). On September 2000 when members of the Sydney based Anti-
Olympic alliance challenged Olympic legislation in street protests their message was clear: the
Olympic Games serve the interests of global capital first and foremost (Bale & Christensen, p.
135). This was not the first time that anti-Olympic activists had made the important connection
between the Olympic industry and global capitalism, or had challenged Olympic sponsors for
their complicity in environmental destruction, human rights abuses, and the widening gap
between rich and poor countries, and between rich and poor within a country (Bale &
Christensen, p. 135).
Where has the public dialogue or opportunity for citizen engagement in the creation of
this elitist public sport policy been? The very demand to better co-ordinate sport delivery has
come at a time when the propensity for governments and public leadership has been to privatize,
contract out and decentralize services and responsibilities.
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
18/21
17
The continuing tension and debates, between whether the public sector should engage in a
sport policy that favours elite sport over a policy promoting broader physical education,
continue. The crisis of legitimacy surrounding Sport Canada and its involvement in sport policy
caused by these long standing tensions between mass participation and elite objectives
(Bergsgard, Houlihan, Mangset, Nodland, & Rommetvedt, 2007) will have to be revisited after
the 2012 Summer Games. It is clear that a shift towards more encouragement of elite athletes
leads to a more fragmented sports policy and away from a public policy which has any socially
redeeming values or concepts. Where is the social value in the current sport policy? How can we
engage the public in discussion of sport policy when the policy is centering more on the high
performances of elite athletes? State involvement in sport has centred on principles of
accountability due to Sports Canadas reliance on grants as its primary instrument and because of
the relative autonomy of partner sports organizations. The Federal government is criticized for
being too interventionist in the affairs of NSOs while at the same time not being accountable for
outputs and outcomes (Peters, 1995). Lack of medalling will result in public criticism of not
getting enough bang for the buck (Knight, MacNeil, & Donnelly, 2005). Building public value
concerns the need to obtain legitimacy and support. The task of building support and legitimacy
for a policy or of enhancing the effective claim that an official may make on society at large, is
what political management is all about (Moore, 1995). Public managers and leaders must work
to fashion legitimacy and support for themselves, their policies, or their organizational strategies.
What are the international trends and wider government expectations in relation to sport?
It has been proven in the past that a broad national sport policy can generate economic growth,
decrease health expenditures, promote social integration, and develop national identity
(Hargreaves, 1985). What has happened to the Canadian Sport Policy (CSP) tabled in 1993
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
19/21
18
which set out those wider goals? That policy had come from extensive consultation between
leadership in both the public and voluntary sectors. It is still technically the blueprint for Sport
Canada. That public policy had four objectives which were to enhance: excellence, participation,
capacity( modernization) and interaction (collaboration and cooperation ). Sadly these goals have
been overshadowed by a rush for medals. While Kellermans governance paradigm may bring
the three sectors together the result as in Canadas current public sport policy may not produce
public goods of benefit to Canadian society.
BibliographyAlvesson, M. (1991). Organisational Symbolism and Ideology.Journal of Management Studies Vol 28,
207-225.
Bale, J., & Christensen, M. K. (2004). Introduction: Post-Olympism. In J. B. Christensen, Post-Olympism?
Questioning Sport in the Twenty-First Century(pp. 13-32). Oxford: Oxford International
Publishers Ltd.
Bergsgard, N., Houlihan, B., Mangset, P., Nodland, S., & Rommetvedt, H. (2007). Sport Policy: A
Comparative Analysis of Stability and Change. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Bradford, N. (1999). Innovation by Commission: Policy Paradigms and the Canadian Political System. In J.
Bickerton, & A. Gagnon, Canadian Politics (pp. 541-564). Peterborough: Broadview Press.
Doern, G. B., Pal, L. A., & Tomlin, B. W. (1996). The Internationalization of Canadian Public Policy. In G. B.
Doern, L. A. Pal, & B. W. Tomlin, Border Crossing: The Internationalization of Canadian Public
Policy(pp. 1-27). Toronto: Oxford University Press.
Graham, C. (1986). Leni Riefenstahl and Olympia. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press.
Hall, P. (1993). Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policy Making in
Britain. Comparative Politics Vol 25 , 275-297.
Hargreaves, J. (1985). From Socialism to Authoritarian Populism: State Intervention in Sport and Physical
Recreation in Contemporary Britain. Leisure Studies Vol 4 No 2, 219-226.
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
20/21
19
Hoberman, J. (2004). Sportive Nationalism and Globalization. In J. Bale, & M. K. Christensen, Post
Olympism? Questioning Sport in the Twenty-First Century(pp. 177-199). New York: Oxford
International Publishers Ltd.
Houlihan, B. (2004). Sports Globalization, the State and the Problem of Governance. In T. Slack, The
Commercialisation of Sport(pp. 52-71). London: Routledge (Taylor and Francis Group).
Keech, M., & McFee, G. (2000). Locating Issues and Values in Sport and Leisure Cultures. In M. K. McFee,
Issues and Values in Sport and Leisure Cultures (pp. 1-23). Oxford: Meyer & Meyer Sport (UK)
Ltd.
Kellerman, B. (1999). Reinventing Leadership: Making the Connection between Politics and Business.
Albany : State University.
Knight, G., MacNeil, M., & Donnelly, P. (2005). The Disappointment Games: Narratives of Olympic failure
in Canada and New Zealand. International Review for the Sociology of Sport Vol 40, 25-51.
Macintosh, D., & Whitson, D. (1990). The Game Planners: Transforming Canada's Sport System.
Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
McFee, G. (2000). The Persistence of Value: An Olympic Case-Study. In M. K. McFee, Issues and Values in
Sport and Leisure Cultures (pp. 255-278). Oxford: Meyer & Meyer Sport (UK) Ltd.
Moore, M. (1995). Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Nixon, H. L. (2008). Sport in a Changing World. Boulder, Colorado: Paradigm Publishers.
Orwell, G. (1945). The Sporting Spirit.
Pannekoek, F. (2009). Canada's Historic Sites: Reflections on a Quarter Century, 1980-2005. The Public
Historian Vol 31 No 1., 69-88.
Paqet, G. (1999). Tectonic Changes in Canadian Governance. In L. A. Pal, How Ottawa Spends 1999-2000:
Shape Shifting: Canadian Governance Toward The 21st Century. Don Mills: Oxford University
Press.
Peters, B. (1995). The Politics of Bureaucracy. New York: Longman.
Ramphal, J. (2010, March 6). Canada's 'Own the Podium' Program Yields Golden Dividends at Vancouver2010 Olympic Winter Games. Retrieved September 7, 2011, from Canada and the World,
Olympics: http://informedvote.ca/2010/03/06/canada%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98own-the-
podium
Sam, M. P., & Jackson, S. J. (2004). Sport Policy Development in New Zealand: Paradoxes of an
Integrative Paradigm. International Review for the Sociology of Sport Vol 39 No 2, 205-222.
-
7/31/2019 Sport Canada
21/21
20
Scarpaci, J. L., Segre, R., & Coyula, M. (2002). Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis. Chapel Hill:
The University of North Carolina Press.
Shaw, C. A. (2008). Five Ring Circus: Myths and Realities of the Olympic Games. Gabriola Island, B.C.:
New Society Publishers.
Slack, T., Berrett, T., & Mistry, K. (1994). Rational Planning Systems as a Source of Organizational
Conflict. International Review for the Sociology of Sport Vol 29 No 3, 317-326.
Stone, D. (1997). Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. New York: W.W. Norton.
Tomlinson, A. (1984). De Coubertin and the Modern Olympics. In A. Tomlinson, & G. Whannel, Five-Ring
Circus: Money,Power and Politics at the Olympic Games (pp. 84-97). London: Pluto.
Whitson, D., & Macintosh, D. (1990). The Game Planners: Transforming Canada's Sport System.
Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
Works, M. o. (2000). Regional Conferences on Sport: A Discussion Paper for the Development of a
Canadian Policy on Sport. Ottawa: Government Services.
Zakus, D. (1996). A Genesis of the Canadian Sport System in Pierre Trudeau's Political Philosophy and
Agenda. Sport History Review Vol 27, 30-48.