Associations representing Olympic, Paralympic athletes request more federal funding

Canadian athlete representatives are asking the federal government to increase funding for the Athlete Assistance Program (APP) by $6.3 million in the 2024 federal budget.

AthletesCAN, the association of Canada’s national team athletes, the Canadian Olympic Committee Athletes’ Commission and the Canadian Paralympic Committee Athletes’ Council made the announcement Thursday, saying the proposed funding hike aligns with inflation since 2017 — the last time the program was adjusted.

The AAP provides a living, training and tuition allowance for Canada’s high-performance athletes.

The request — which also consists of indexing the AAP to the inflation rate moving forward, similar to other government-funded programs — is an 18.8 per cent increase in AAP funding.

This call for increased funding comes just 10 days after the Canadian Olympic Committee and Canadian Paralympic Committee jointly requested an additional $104 million in funding from the federal government.

The COC and CPC called on the federal government to make important investments in Canadian athletes and a stronger, safer sports system after releasing the results of a study conducted by Deloitte on the financial health of Canadian National Sports Organizations. They stressed that the increase was urgently needed to avoid a crisis.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 14, 2024.