A New Game Plan: The Norway Model

How does the way things are done and funded in Canada compare to other developed nations around the world? We're currently in the process of reimagining our sporting model here in Canada and as we look to the rest of the world for inspiration, one country keeps coming up. Norway. Norway. Norway. Norway. Norway is often looked to as a country that has figured a lot of things out. You know Norway soccer at the last world cup where people were saying hey look they've embraced this model of broad-based participation, not selecting teams early, not cutting down. That still resulted in, you know, outstanding performance at the world level. And listen, that's for good reason. Norway, despite having a similar population to a major North American city, won a record 41 medals at the Winter Olympics in 2026. But before we all start investing in the Nordic combined, let's understand that although there's reason for causation, the correlation to Canada might not be as simple. It's always a good idea to look outside of our own country to see how others are doing it and I think it's important to note that Norway is a very different country than Canada. We share sort of northern latitude but a lot of a lot of things are different but they have an incredible participation base. They're really really good at getting many kids playing and that is seen as a model for them creating also success at the Olympic and Paralympic level because you've got this huge participation base feeding those high-performance teams. Norway has five million people and so much and and like so much diversity too. No they don't and when you talk about their income gap it's not as wide as ours. So we have very different population than Norway. Norway being the richest country in the world, they have excellent health outcomes. It's not a coincidence. So one solution is to make sure that everybody's rich, and that might take a really long time. But also, like, why should somebody's income dictate a better health outcome? Why should somebody's income be that predicting factor for whether or not they can play sports? And I believe it shouldn't be. There has been a recent infusion of resources into the system with the announcements from The current federal government, where does that put Canada in terms of its funding in relation to what's going on in the rest of the world? If you look at the ways in which sport policy plays out internationally, often it's the case that the ways in which a sport system is funded are a reflection of the values of the particular government at the time. So there are examples around the world of different countries investing in sports in different ways. You know, traditionally, countries like Australia, for example, have decided that they are going to put most of their money into elite sport because they want to be an athletic powerhouse. And they've certainly been able to do that, especially when it comes to things like Olympic sports. If you look at other countries, the Scandinavian model is the one that people always refer to, and it's still an important model, has tended to be Much more grassroots, much more broad-based participation. I think Canada's always kind of found itself in this sort of stuck between those stations in a little bit, in some ways. If you look at other G7 countries, which I think is an important benchmark, they're anywhere between six to eight times more funded. These are athletes directly than how we're funding our own Olympic athletes, right? So that is definitely something we need to close the gap on. So as we continue to navigate this world, we continue to look around the world for inspiration. Australia, for example, similar to Canada in terms of being a Commonwealth country, similar geography and politics, which is why my homie, Carissa Donkin, went down under to learn, are there lessons we can apply up here in the Great White North? The interesting thing about Australia is that it's a big country, diverse geography, just like we have here. And even more importantly, it's a federation. So that's one of the big issues here in Canada is that tension between Sport at the federal level and sport at the provincial and the local level. That's what I learned when I went there. They already have an organization called the Australian Sports Commission that oversees sport in the country. It oversees safe sport. It oversees the Australian Institute of Sport, where the best athletes train and where kids come and visit and learn all about the sport system. And they also do a lot of sports science research. We don't have an entity like that in Canada. That's the vision that is contemplated in the Future of Sport in Canada Commission report. And so it's almost the peak of the future. And I know that the people in charge here are listening to Australia, are talking to Australia when trying to figure out how to reshape our system. I think actually Australia and Norway are really great examples. Those are small countries. They punch above their weight. If you look at the number of medals they win per capita like that, that's exactly I think the type of sports movement and program and infrastructure that we really need, and that's investing up and down the stack. It's making sure we're fully vertically integrated in terms of how we're funded. We've done some research to look at, you know, how sport and why sport is invested in and And, and... the why is really important. The why is as important as the how much in my mind. What's true in Canada is we invest in almost every sport. I'd say one of the biggest differences between Canada and the Netherlands or Australia, for example, is they focus a lot of their sport funding on five or ten or maybe twelve sports. Whereas we've got like 70 sports that are important to Canadians, and all of them are important.