Québec News

Faced with a serious issue of chronic underfunding, the sports community is asking political parties to commit to making sports a real priority in Quebec: funding for the network should be increased by $500 million just to catch up and ensure optimal recovery. In this regard, a new coalition of the Quebec sports community has formed to join forces in order to influence political parties during the provincial election campaign: the Coalition for the Future of Sport in Quebec ("Coalition" or “CASQ”). CASQ members represent thousands of associations, groups, sports federations, municipalities, regional units and millions of athletes. The lack of funding has real impacts on the ground: drop in participation, drop in the number of volunteers, difficulty in recruiting them, lack of infrastructure and security issues.

The sports community needs help.

“The pandemic has shown to what extent sport is an essential service to the population and that its accessibility could be a hindrance for families in the current context. In addition to contributing to prevention, physical, mental and emotional health, sport helps to create links and unite communities. It is a powerful vector of inclusion and accessibility that should be a priority for the next government," said Julie Gosselin, president of SPORTSQUÉBEC, which represents 900,000 members who practice more than 90 sports supervised by 66 federations, 17 regional units. leisure and sports, and 21 multi-sport partners.

Quebec infrastructures and know-how

Underfunding creates its share of significant challenges. Sports infrastructure must be improved not only to give Quebecers a taste for movement, but also to allow people of all ages, backgrounds and levels, from initiation to excellence, to practice the sport of their choice in an appropriate environment. In addition, there are hundreds of thousands of volunteers who dedicate evenings and entire weekends for others to enjoy. The exceptional know-how present in the Quebec ecosystem must be preserved and promoted, by setting up a structure that promotes the professionalization of trades related to sport.

Ambitious and important targets

The sports community believes that it is time to do everything possible to promote more accessible, innovative, safe and inclusive sports practice and asks the next government to:  Correct the situation of chronic underfunding faced by the sports community for 35 years by adding $500 million to the current envelope of $173 million, on a recurring basis;  Provide Quebec with a predictable and multi-year structured funding approach that will reach all clienteles of the sports community and that will allow organizations to have the human, material and technological resources necessary to support the volunteers in the field who will enable Quebecers to move more;  Accelerate the transformation of the Quebec sports environment, by making sports practice more accessible, innovative, professional, safe and inclusive;  Develop and deploy an investment plan for sports infrastructure to meet community demands. There is a delay in the investment of our infrastructures which is of the order of billions of dollars.

Remember that in Quebec, some five million people practice or work in organized sports. The Coalition insists on the fact that although each gesture which makes it possible to move people here represents a step in the right direction, it is essential to do more.

About the Coalition for the Future of Sport in Quebec

The Coalition is a large group of organizations representing the Quebec sports community and working to develop it. It includes SPORTSQUÉBEC, the Association québécoise du loisirs municipal (AQLM), the Institut national du sport du Québec (INS Québec), the Regroupement du loisirs et du sport du Québec (RLSQ), the Network of regional leisure and sport units du Québec (URLS), as well as the Pôle sports HEC Montréal.