November 6, 2008

Dear Mayor,

On November 6, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES), on behalf of Canada’s True Sport Movement, released What Sport Can Do: The True Sport Report.

There is one very simple idea at the heart of this report – good sport can make a great difference. The same idea is at the heart of the True Sport Movement.

True Sport is a national movement for sport and community. Its goal is 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 wellbeing of individuals, and quality of life in our communities.

We are inviting you, and your council, to take the lead in helping sport live up to its potential as a powerful force for good in your community: Declare your community a True Sport Community, and join over 1,400 other True Sport communities, organizations, clubs, leagues, and teams that are actively working to ensure the sport we have is the sport Canadians want.

As you will see from the report, the benefits of action are clear.  Community sport is an invaluable public asset – a critical, yet largely untapped, reservoir of public benefit that with intentional effort can be made to deliver even more for Canadians:

• A healthier, more active population
• Improved school enrolment, attendance and achievement
• More employable youth with transferable life skills
• Less youth crime and gang involvement
• Lower rates of teen pregnancy and health risk behaviour
• More inclusive communities
• Higher levels of social capital and social trust
• Faster community integration of newcomers
• Improved inclusion, health and wellbeing of people with disabilities
• Strengthened Aboriginal communities and youth
• Improved workplace skills and productivity
• Enhanced sport tourism and neighbourhood renewal efforts
• Attraction of mobile knowledge workers and companies that hire them
• Improved environmental awareness and social mobilization.

Nine out of ten Canadians believe that community sport can be a highly positive influence, particularly for young people and rank it second only to families in this respect. However, only one in five Canadians feel that sport is living up to its true potential. Canadians are worried that community sport is being pulled in the wrong direction, influenced by negative values linked to some commercial sport. 

This report clearly demonstrates that, in order to get the most out of sport, the sport we do must be good sport – built on the values of excellence, fair play, fun and inclusion. This is what we mean by True Sport.

The cross-cutting benefits of good community sport are a clear invitation to leaders from all sectors to go beyond traditional approaches to sport and community, to come together, and to adopt a more horizontal and inclusive approach that will enable us to harness the power of sport to help us achieve our community goals. 

If we want sport to live up to its true potential, we need to be intentional about ensuring that it reflects our best values and that everyone has a chance to participate.  True Sport is the opportunity to exercise this intention – to transform our desire for good sport into action.

Some of the very real steps that your community may take, if you have not already done so, include:

• Ensuring equitable access to sport facilities and programs especially for new Canadians, people on low-income, and those with disabilities.
• Setting clear standards for ethical behaviour and inclusion for all municipally funded sport facilities and programs.
• Asking how sport can help advance key social and economic goals and developing strategies and linkages to make it happen.
• Facilitating dialogue between sport and other community organizations and working together to achieve community objectives.
• Developing an integrated community sport plan aimed at providing accessible, quality sport experiences to all community members. 

There are no magic bullets when it comes to meeting complex social and economic challenges, but there is strong evidence that good community sport can be an incredibly powerful way to strengthen individuals and communities. The challenge now is to be intentional and to work together to ensure we put sport to work and have a community sport system that can deliver.

Every game we play, every match we organize, every race we run, large or small, can help build a stronger Canada.

For more information on What Sport Can Do, True Sport, and how your community can become a True Sport Community, please visit our website at: truesport.ca

Sincerely,

Pat Fiacco
Mayor of Regina
True Sport Champion

Dr. Louise Walker
Chair, CCES
True Sport Champion

Beckie Scott
Olympic gold medalist
True Sport Champion