Secretary of state for sport Adam van Koeverden spent time with athletes, coaches and people from National Sport Organizations at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Milan Cortina.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
The secretary of state for sport of Canada, Adam van Koeverden, says the federal government will continue emphasizing participation and accessibility in sport following the Milan Cortina Winter Games.
Van Koeverden returned recently from Italy, where he attended both the Olympic and Paralympic competitions before heading to Whitehorse for the Arctic Winter Games.
During the Olympic portion of the trip, he attended more than a dozen sporting events and met with sports ministers from various countries, along with Canadian athletes, coaches and national sport organization leaders.
“I met with athletes and their families quite a lot, as well as coaches, admin, the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Canadian Paralympic Committee,” van Koeverden said in an interview this past Wednesday.
Many concerns were raised by the athletes, informing the secretary of the areas they would like to see changed or improved.
Winter Olympics and Paralympics face reduced host options as the planet warms
The timing of the Games, in particular, was frequently brought up. Across the Games, events and training runs were delayed or rescheduled due to the weather impacting snow quality. As the Paralympic events crept into March, it was warmer than anticipated, which was clear as skiers took their races in shorts or T-shirts.
Canadian Para snowboarder Tyler Turner, who won bronze in the cross event, criticized the ski course across multiple interviews before and after his races.
“Hosting in March might be something to reconsider,” van Koeverden said. “Especially for the Paralympics, when it’s in a more southern country like Italy, perhaps.”
At the start of this year, the federal government announced the Enabling Accessibility Fund, which provides a sum of money for applicant companies with projects aiming to make workplaces accessible.
Van Koeverden, seen here skiing with 11-year-old Ronan Lebel, a sit-skier with the Nakkertok Cross Country Ski Club, at Parliament Hill last month, says he wants the federal government to continue to make sport accessible and to increase support at the grassroots level.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
“I had a good meeting recently with an adaptive sports organization that’s providing solutions. If a dock is not wheelchair accessible, then how do you expect to get people who use wheelchairs to go canoeing and kayaking?” van Koeverden said.
Canada’s Paralympic team added to its medal total in Italy from both individual and team events, hitting a historic milestone of 200 Winter Paralympic medals, becoming the sixth country to achieve this mark. Yet, despite collecting 15 overall Paralympic medals – a 10 medal drop from the 2022 Beijing Games – Canada finished eighth in the medals standings, 29 shy of China in first.
“We need to invest strategically in sport, but we also have to focus on participation and making sure that more Canadians have opportunities,” van Koeverden said. “Whether we’re investing in infrastructure or participation or Olympic and Paralympic sports, I think those investments are really strong.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney was in Norway on Saturday and told Canadian athletes competing at a ski festival that his government was planning to revamp its funding for Canadian athletes.
For the past 20 years, core funding for sport from the federal government has not increased. A preliminary report from the Future of Sport in Canada Commission, released last August, said Canada’s National Sport Organizations (NSOs) are in dire need of extra funding and operate with diminishing funds that have not kept pace with inflation or increasing expectations.
COC, CPC will continue to lobby feds for sport core funding after budget gave none
The report highlights that “funding and attention have too often been concentrated on elite, high-performance athletes, with insufficient focus on the burgeoning needs of youth and local communities.”
While the secretary does not deny the lack of increase in this specific stream, he highlights it only represents about 15 per cent of sport funding, which is directed toward sports organizations and the entire ecosystem.
As a whole, van Koeverden said, Canada’s national sport budget has grown from roughly $130-million annually in 2005 to approximately $266-million today. Currently, the federal government supports at least 68 national sports, including four that are only para sports (goalball, wheelchair rugby, wheelchair basketball and boccia, which was designed for people with cerebral palsy).
Van Koeverden is a three time-Olympian himself and understands the importance of athlete support, financially and otherwise.
Last October, Ottawa announced an investment of $3.11-million for mental health initiatives, highlighting access to mental health services for athletes and coaches with a national team card, including those who went on to represent Canada at the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Games.
“I strongly believe that investments in sport are great for our national identity, great for the communities that we live in, the connectedness between our neighbours and us and our sense of place,” van Koeverden said.
“We’re investing in participation at a grassroots level, or we’re investing in national teams and their ability to represent Canada.”