Introduction
True Sport is a national movement for sport and community. Its core mission is to be a catalyst to help sport live up to its full potential as a public asset for Canada and Canadian society – making a significant contribution to the development of youth, the well-being of individuals, and quality of life in our communities.
There is now evidence that sport’s benefits go far beyond the positive health effects of physical activity that have long been understood. A growing body of research points to community sport’s fundamental role as a primary generator of social capital and related benefits across a broad spectrum of societal goals including education, child and youth development, social inclusion, crime prevention, economic development and environmental sustainability. Perhaps most significantly, no other domain of community life has demonstrated sport’s capacity to connect so many young people to positive adult role models and mentors, opportunities for positive development, and help in acquiring critical life skills.
Evidence documenting these benefits is causing a new picture of Canada’s community sport system to emerge – that of a critical, yet largely untapped, reservoir of public benefit that, with intentional effort, can be made to deliver even more for Canadians. To realize these benefits, though, the sport we do must be good sport, driven by positive values – when good sport is used intentionally, it can have even greater benefits.
Research indicates that this is exactly the kind of sport that the vast majority of Canadians want, understanding intuitively that this is the sport that generates the greatest benefits. True Sport undertook this research initiative in order to provide concrete evidence of these benefits – to put data and examples around this intuition and aspiration. This report is intended to enable communities, policy makers, and business leaders to see the tremendous potential that lies within our community sport system and to catalyze new approaches that will put this potential to work for Canadians.
