What Canada Can Learn From Australia's Sports System

Hi, everyone, and welcome inside our CBC Sports digital studio. Joining me now to talk all about our new Saving Sports series here at CBC Sports is reporter Carissa Duncan. Carissa, welcome. We're back. Always good to talk to you, Mackenzie. Thanks for having me. I'm excited. We've got some things to talk about, as we've said. You came back from Australia not too long ago. You were studying and investigating what their approach to sport is like. And based on what you've shared with me so far, it sounds like their transformation of their entire system Really started around the 70s when they had a four Olympic outing, but Canada hasn't really had that same inflection point in terms of the evolution of our sports system. So why now is it the time to re-examine it? Yeah, so we'll walk you through kind of how we got here. So if we go all the way back to a few years ago, we saw really a lot of bravery from athletes coming forward, talking about different things that they'd been through in terms of, you know, maltreatment and abuse and terrible things like that. We also heard a lot from national sport organizations about a funding crisis and not having enough money to do what they're supposed to do and what they do best. And so there were a lot of calls around that time for a public inquiry into sport in our country. That didn't quite happen, but what we did have was a commission. So for a couple of years, thousands of Canadians spoke to the commissioners about how they'd like to see the sport system reimagined. And it covered a whole bunch of things from abuse and maltreatment, like we talked about, but also really the structure of the sport system itself. And what they came back with in a report that was just released this past spring, almost 1,000-page report with a ton of calls to action, was really a roadmap that called for how to fix what they described as a fragmented, a broken system that's rampant with abuse and maltreatment. And so what we've done from that is. What can we do with that roadmap in terms of figuring out where we go next and what could our system look like? And that is the question that led us to Australia because we wanted to know who does it well and what can we learn from them. Okay, exactly. So that's where I'll go next. Why Australia? Why do they have an admirable system that Canada might look to almost replicate? Yeah. And, you know, there are other countries that do it very well. We talk about Norway a lot. And obviously, they're a much smaller country than we are geographically, but also population wise. And so Australia made sense because it's a federation just like we are. It's geographically diverse, a bit of a different climate than we have. But they are, in my mind, it's a bit of a peek into the future. Right. They're a little bit further along on this journey than they are. They have one entity that oversees all the sport. And as you alluded to, this came from disappointment in the Australian sports system. At the 1976 Olympics, right here in Canada and Montreal, they didn't win a gold medal. And so they thought about how to rethink the system. How can we make it better? And so they created this Institute of Sport, which is now primarily used for training camps. I toured that institute. to State-of-the-art facilities, but also just kids everywhere. Yeah, learning. Learning about the sports system. There's so much pride in their sports system. But it's really their structure, Mackenzie. So everything falls under the Australian Sports Commission. And that was a big recommendation that has come out of the Future of Sport in Canada Commission right here in Canada earlier this year, is that our system isn't really a system at all. It's fragmented, doesn't make a lot of sense sometimes, and there's a leadership void. And so that commission said, we should have one entity that oversees all of sport. Australia's already got that. And so that's why I went there, to try to understand a bit more about what it is they're doing and what can we take from that. Okay. And the koalas. And I did see some koalas, that is true. Okay, but that's a great point. I mean, this Australian Sports Commission, as you said, oversees everything. It's kind of like this umbrella commission all the way from grassroots to pro sport. What are some of the other notable differences that Canada might look to sort of follow suit in? Yeah. So I also met with Sport Integrity Australia. So they oversee all of the complaints that might come in around abuse, around doping, around competition manipulation, which, you know, is a growing issue. We have a similarly named organization here in Canada called Sport Integrity Canada. So it's learning, you know, this organization that's still relatively young in Canada, what can they learn from Australia? You know, their organization is relatively young Those two organizations are always talking and sharing notes. So definitely that. But I think it's really also just how sport is so embedded in culture. In Australia, it's something people are very proud of. When I was there, there was a big rugby league game. And there was actually a holiday on the Friday before the game. That wasn't even the day the game was. But they had a holiday kind of getting ready for the game. Ready for the game. But it's embedded in culture. It's not just... Kids become fans of sport, but from a young age, they consider sport as a career path. It's something that is a huge part of their national identity. I think that's why it's been such a priority historically in Australia. That is so cool and I remember reading in your notes this morning that they take a lot of pride in sport culture and to your point these kids aren't just fans they're athletes like they grow up with this sport culture integrated into their lifestyle. You also mentioned you spoke to Secretary of Sport Adam Vancouver. Yeah and and so you know he's he's really this has sort of been His goal is to change the way that we do sport. In Canada, we saw a massive investment back in the spring to the tune of, you know, around a billion dollars. And so, you know, one question that we have for him is really about what difference is that money going to make? Where's the accountability? That's obviously a lot of money going out the door. But also, what are you going to take and do with this roadmap that we talked about? Are you going to create this entity that it that it contemplates? And what is that all going to look like? Here's what he had to say. There's a lot to learn from the Australians as well as the the UK sports system is great. There's a lot to learn from the Dutch, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Japan and South Korea do some really interesting things too. So the best thing about being Canadian is we're not shy about using best practices from other countries but they're also doing the same thing about the Canadian sports system. You know a lot of Australian winter athletes come to Canada to train and a lot of them have been successful at the Winter Olympics. It's kind of our strength. So we're certainly not shy about working with our partners and looking at what those best practices are in other countries. This is just the start of the Saving Sports series. What more can we expect in the future? Well, there's so much, you know, when you talk about sport. And even if you just go into a room of people and you talk about the future of sport, how can our sport system be better? Pretty much everybody has ideas, right? Because sport is something that we all interact with, whether it's your kids playing, you know, sport in school or Little League or whatever the case is, or your own experiences growing up. So, you know, throughout this series, we want to take a look at participation levels. In schools, we want to take a look at our safe sports system. Is that working the way that it should? And how can we make it better? We want to take a look at our aging sports infrastructure. We know that 50% of the publicly funded indoor pools in our country were built between 1970 and 1999. That is a crazy stat, by the way. So they're starting to show their age, right? So yeah, those are a few of the things we're going to be looking at. The rise of pay-to-play as well. And there's plenty more to come after that. This is an ongoing conversation that we want to have here at CBC, and we want to hear from people. What do you think we should be talking about? Absolutely. Carissa, thank you so much for talking me through all your findings. Really exciting, and looking forward to see the rest of your work come out over the next couple weeks. Yeah, thank you for having me. And I think it's a really important topic that we're really dedicated to delving into. Plenty more to come on this. Maybe we'll be chatting again sometime soon. Yes. Okay, looking forward to watching the rest of your interviews. But also, if you'd like to read into Carissa's work, you can read more of her articles on cbcsports.ca.