MILAN, Italy -- Athletes from Canada are under strain and risk being left behind, according to Canadian Olympic officials, in part due to a lack federal funding that they say hasn’t meaningfully increased in two decades. As the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Games wrapped, Canadian Olympic officials used a final speaking opportunity to launch a plea for more grassroots and high-performance sport investment from Ottawa, arguing Canadian sporting organizations are faltering and are now struggling to fulfill their mandate. “Our system is in decline. National sports organizations are having to cut training camps,” said Eric Myles, the chief sport officer with the Canadian Olympic Committee. “I spoke to the cross-country skiing team,” he continued in French. “They weren’t even able to hold a training camp together with the two national groups, to bring the team together. There wasn’t enough space in the budget.” In a world where global, competitive investment in sport is increasing, where “other nations accelerate, investing exponentially more in coaching, sports science,” Myles said Canadian teams are simply making do. Aside from highlighting Canada’s medal moments, the Canadian closing Olympic press conference took a serious tone Sunday, as officials honed in on a critical message directed at Ottawa and repeated some slogans that are familiar in the current political landscape. “This isn’t just about sport, it’s about nation building,” said David Shoemaker, CEO and secretary general of the Canadian Olympic Committee. “It is, to borrow a phrase, about what makes Canada strong.” While Italy, the host country, celebrates its best performance at a Winter Games, Canada is wrapping the event with 21 medals, eleventh on the medal table. “We’re competitive,” Shoemaker said. “We look up at the medal table, we see the countries ahead of us, we aspire to do better.” The 21 medals mark the fewest for Canada at a Winter Games since 2004. The Canadian Olympic Committee said it aims each Olympics to land at 5th or higher in the medal count. “We believe we’re being outspent by, you know, Australia, Great Britain and our European counterparts, both on a per-capita measure and a total measure by multiples,” Shoemaker said. “That makes it incredibly difficult to compete.” The stagnant funding amounts to a cut, especially in a period of particularly high inflation, according to Jennifer Heil, Canada’s chef de mission for the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Games. “We’re creating a pay-to-play system in Canada,” she said. “Where wealth and luck are some of the major determining factors as to who gets to stand on a podium.” Officials with the Canadian Olympic Committee said Canadian athletes are spending $25,000 on average per individual, to wear the Maple Leaf in Italy. In practical terms, Heil said, families are picking up the tab, and can only afford to pick one Olympic cycle to compete in. “These athletes are leaving before they have the experience, before they are at their peak, able to stand on that podium,” she said. The lack of funding, they say, is reverberating down the sport-training system. Heil said Canada has brought some incredibly talented support staff to Milan, but some of those staff fear for their jobs next year. The Canadian Olympic Committee and Paralympic Committee had requested an additional $144 million in sport funding in last November’s federal budget, arguing taxes on sports betting could deliver those revenues. That money would add to the $220 million already sent to national sport organizations like Skate Canada and Curling Canada. That extra funding was not part of the November budget. On Monday, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State for Sport said that while core funding to sporting organizations has remained constant, Ottawa has added several new streams of funding to the sport landscape. Those include, they said, $3.1 million for mental health initiatives, a $40-million Athlete Assistance Program and a $75-million Community Sport for All initiative. “There has been a whole bunch of new streams added and this is consistently ignored by media reports,” the spokesperson said in a statement to CTV News. “The federal government is Canada’s biggest supporter of amateur sport, and we are dedicated to protecting existing funding, investing more and helping our athletes succeed.” It’s not the first time that Canada’s Olympic officials had used the spotlight of the Winter Games to drive home their requests for more money. Similar messages were delivered in the opening press conference. “This is nation building at its finest at a very modest expense when you compare it to, you know, pipelines and icebreakers,” Shoemaker said.
