Olympic Funding - ＂What It Really Costs To Represent Canada＂ (with Jane Roos)
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Summary
Jane Roos is the founder of CanFund, an organization that has helped support thousands of Canadian athletes on their Olympic journey, often stepping in where traditional funding falls short. In a country as wealthy as Canada, why are some of our Olympic athletes still struggling to survive financially?
Transcript
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Right now, Canadians across the country are glued to their screens, watching our athletes
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We see the flags, we hear the anthem, and for a moment, the entire country stands still,
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But what most Canadians don't see is what it actually costs to get there.
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Behind the scenes, many of these athletes are not millionaires.
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Some are working second jobs, some are relying on their families, some are fundraising just
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to stay in the sport long enough to wear that Maple Leaf on the world stage.
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In a country as wealthy as Canada, why are some of our Olympic athletes still struggling
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Earlier today, Jim Lang and I had a chance to speak to Jane Roos, the founder of CanFund,
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an organization that has helped support thousands of Canadian athletes on their Olympic journey,
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often stepping in where traditional funding falls short.
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Jane, thanks for joining us and taking the time at what is probably
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Of course, we are day 11, I believe, of the Olympics today.
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The Winter Olympics are underway, and one of the real important cogs in the wheel that
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make it possible for athletes to get to where they are in this country is Jane and CanFund.
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And so, to me, it was a big deal at this time to get you on with us so that while people are
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thinking about the Olympics, they can think about how, as Canadians, we can support our
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And, of course, you are the queen of that in Canada and have been for some time.
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Maybe tell us a little bit about what CanFund does, and then we can work backwards from why
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it's necessary and some of the stories associated.
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So, CanFund gives money directly to the athletes.
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So, on average, we have two applications a year, 700 to 800 athletes apply.
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And because of Canadians who show up, we're able to give each athlete who's approved $8,000.
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So, the more we raise, the more athletes we fund.
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And we are in the game of we create really cool campaigns.
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So, I always say CanFund does our best work when the athletes are out of the spotlight, but
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And I'm glad you brought that up, Jane, because I'll freely admit I got emotional watching
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Perry Sound's Megan Oldham win that gold medal and watching her with her hand over her heart
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But we forget between the time and all the thankless hours of training and falling in the
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hill to get to the point she could win a gold to getting Milana and Cortina.
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Yeah, I feel like most people don't understand that the journey is so costly and so few people
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I always say, I compare CanFund to like entrepreneurs getting seed money.
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I, I think I can't, there's nearly every Canadian athlete since 2003, able bodied and para who's
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competed for Canada on the world stage has been a CanFund recipient.
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And not only that, but you know, you hear the stories.
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I hope that's still an ongoing thing because it's so important for the people that sponsor
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But some of the amazing stories from both the Paralympics, winter and summer Olympics,
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there were elements of how important and at the moment when they needed it most,
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these athletes became recipients of the CanFund funding.
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And you know, it just became apparent to me and maybe you can share some of these with
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us, uh, Jane, but there are athletes that would not have made the Olympics, but for that bit of
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funding that made it possible at some point in their, uh, training on the way to the, to the Olympics.
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I think when you're living on basically nothing and you're budgeting everything, I mean, I haven't
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Like there's such an honor and a privilege to represent your country on the world stage.
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And what we do is we engage people to show up for them.
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So when you're an athlete who is, you know, $60,000 in debt, getting 16,000 from us a year
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And some of the athletes will say that we're their only sponsor.
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So Canadians are showing up and we have so many unique campaigns.
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And the biggest thing is with every donation, you get a tax receipt and you find out which
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Like, you know, like when I, I, so I started camping from a hospital bed.
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I used to be an athlete and I was in a really bad car accident and my best friend was driving
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And one of the things I really wanted to start when can fun was in the earlier stages when
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we weren't a charity yet was just the transparency.
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So when you donate, you find out who you help, because I think following somebody on their journey
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and, and getting to see their, how they improve being part of their, um, highs and lows.
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Cause there's many of those with athletes is really important.
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You, if you're following the story, if you have a vested interest and, uh, sponsoring that
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athlete specifically, you're going to be more engaged in our athletes and the Olympics overall.
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And I think with us right now, you know, we have a program where people are monthly donors.
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We call them patrons of sport because they stay with us throughout the whole year.
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And then in 2019, I noticed that we didn't have, um, a lot of female donors.
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So women across the country are giving $150 or more.
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Well, I wanted to touch on that, Jane, because our oldest daughter lives in Edmonton
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and she's obsessed with our Canadian figure skating team in Milano and Cortina.
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And when she found out about Canadian athletes now can find, and I told her I was going to
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be talking to you, she was so excited because her and her partner want to get on that and
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start doing monthly donations towards the figure skaters.
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Like we go all the way back to like, even right now.
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So in, um, Xavier McKeever, who was in the cross country, um, Olympian at these games,
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his mom, Melanie from 2005 is a can fund recipient.
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And then, and you go to figure skating, like, and what I love about our.
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Like I see in figure skating, we go back to, um, like Scott Moyer was a can fund recipient
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Like one of the early, early skaters, but then we also have the support.
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Like Kurt Browning has done stuff for can fund Brian Orser has done stuff, Tracy Wilson.
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We're trying to like level the playing field for our athletes, but we're trying to say,
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This country gave them so much that they're so proud to be Canadian.
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You know, they're going to watch 16 days of the games.
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And right now, when you watch these games, I mean, even a Blondie who just competed today
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and won gold can fund has been supporting even since 2009 saying with Valerie Montez,
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both the flag bearers walking into the opening ceremonies are can fund recipients.
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Like everybody relies on this charity because getting sponsorship and getting money,
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you know, when you're not in the spotlight, when you're in the thick of it, when you have to pay
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for coaches and equipment and travel, it's not there.
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And then we approve and make this massive waiting list.
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And then we'll have a call with 12 athletes and we invite donors to listen in on the call.
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And I always ask them, like, if you got camp on right now,
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how would that impact your journey or your where you're at?
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And there's tears and it's so different for every athlete.
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Some say that it will help them pay for more physio and more treatments.
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Some athletes will say that this will get them to their final training
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Like so much of the money we gave out leading into these games,
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So, you know, I think the really cool thing about CanFun is every donor should be really
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proud that the money that they're giving is being used to, you know,
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because I feel like the athletes are in the arena.
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They're getting their butts kicked, right?
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And when you donate, you know that that money is actually making a significant difference,
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Many of these athletes have, like you say, Jane,
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they've put their lives completely on hold and some of them are young.
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So putting university on hold relationships or, you know, just getting into the career
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that they studied in university and they're doing that to represent their country.
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And some of these events and Jane, maybe I'm wrong about this.
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You know, certain snowboarding, skiing, and the high-flying games, they're
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Those athletes might stand a better chance of getting sponsorship through the process.
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But there are events that are just not as brand significant, I guess, to sponsorship.
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And I think those athletes really do represent a lot of the games for us.
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And they're a little bit stranded, I think, on a desert island when it comes to sponsorship.
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I would say you'd be surprised nearly every athlete competing at these games
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Figure skaters, your speed skaters, your snowboarders, everybody.
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I think it just costs so much and the funding's just not there for them in ways that it should be.
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And so CanFund becomes this, you know, it, everyone says to us it's a significant difference maker.
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Like I just had a call two days ago with, there was 10 Paralympians on the call
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and eight of them were on the sledge hockey team.
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And I same question, if you got $8,000 today, what would it mean?
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And you see grown people like men, boy, people teary-eyed.
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Like getting CanFund, yes, it alleviates all the costs or some of them, like, you know,
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You know, Jane, I know Tyler McGregor fairly well.
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I've got to know him over the years and his story to becoming one of the great sledge hockey
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players in the world is pretty incredible, but the sledges aren't cheap.
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And I can see those sledge hockey players getting emotional because that's the difference between
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Some of the athletes will say getting CanFund is the difference between qualifying and not
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standing on the podium or not staying in sport longer.
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And we show up to for athletes who get injured.
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Like, you know, I don't really care about the medals, really.
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I mean, I have in moments, we did a campaign in Vancouver where Eric Sprott was giving us
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a hundred thousand for every gold medal won because he said, what's your biggest problem?
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I said, for the next games, like after these Paralympic winter games, nobody cares for another
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You know, like I said earlier, like so few people wear the Maple Leaf.
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And when you watch the games right now and you look at their Facebook feeds, they just want
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We need them all to donate and fund because the money is going right to the athletes.
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And I would give we would give the athletes more than eight thousand.
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I read the documentation from the government about where they put funding towards sport and
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developing our athletes to get to the Olympics.
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And it's a lot of money and it seems to go to ward facilities.
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Is there a it just seems to me that if we put more into our athletes and that requires funding
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because it's so expensive for the training and the treatments and the travel and everything
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required to be in and among the best in the world, we should be creating the right kind
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of funding that gets to these athletes at the federal level.
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At the same time, it seems like they've been a little bit abandoned on that at the personal
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Maybe maybe the infrastructure is being built to get them to the place where they want to
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And frankly, is there some better way that we could be supporting our athletes
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I think the whole sports system needs kind of like a do over.
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I think that there's a lot of infrastructure that money goes to, but it doesn't get to the athletes.
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Like Italy's our 12th Olympics and I've seen like the carding, you know, one of our campaigns
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that we did kind of embarrassed the Canadian government and they increased carding.
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my goal is could corporate Canada, like we have an adopt an athlete program where it's $10,000.
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I mean, couldn't we get every company in this, you know, country to give $10,000 to adopt an
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I mean, I don't think it would take a lot from everybody if they all showed up.
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But I think the challenge is the government, the infrastructure isn't set.
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artistic swimming was paying $5,000 in team fees.
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They were the first team that was paying like a team fee.
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Fast forward to now, nearly every winter athlete, every sport, and the team fees are up to $30,000.
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So if you don't pay $30,000, you're not competing.
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Not only do you have to be the best, you have to have $30,000 in your pocket potentially to do it.
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And so I think it's super frustrating for the athletes because they're already, you know,
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they're getting carded, but then that's going into their team fees.
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And then they're still paying for extra physio, extra, you know, travel.
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I think Canadians are shocked to know that the athletes will be $50,000, $60,000 in debt coming
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And, you know, we always have the conversation, well, it's their choice.
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But I think we celebrate moments in this country.
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Like when the women's rugby were at the World Cup, an entire country was watching that.
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Yeah, and all those girls, 13 of those players are CanFund recipients.
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But they've made a choice to represent all of us, to represent us as patriots in love
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I just want to add, the politicians of the country are the first ones to hop on for video
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and photo for social media with the athlete from their riding when they win a medal.
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Yeah, I just think, you know, I always say every donation, you can't bottle Canadian pride,
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And I feel like all of our donors stay with us.
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We, you know, when you become a monthly donor, we have a monthly donor, the quarterly newsletters.
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These people who donate to CanFund go behind the scenes.
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You know, we do a really great job, I think, of having to connect our donors
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Because again, there are 86,000 charities and people work hard for their money.
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But I also think the moments that they're competing for our country, not even at the,
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just at the Olympics, but World Cups and World Championships and everywhere,
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And I think if you take away like what they do for our country,
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it matters and these moments matter and the pride.
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And I think that's what we're trying to tell people that this is your donation
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to celebrate the moments that bring an entire country to its feet, that lift us all up, that
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Like when you see excellence, you believe it's possible in your own life.
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I love asking for money because you get to know these athletes and we're rooting for them.
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The whole buzz with CanFund, in my experience, is that they are family members to each of these
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important athletes and the way that they treat them and the regard that the athletes have for
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I endorse in any way that I can people donating to CanFund.
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If you want to see women advance, make the $150 donation.
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And for goodness sake, for $10 a month, be inspired to be part of our athletic program
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here in Canada and get our athletes up on the podium.
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And I'm certainly inspired by what you do and your story.
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That's canadianathletesnow.ca to get to CanFund, $10 a month.
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But I have something else I want to share because it's...
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And one of the things we do, I've done is it's called Art of Accomplishment.
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And I've given painted canvases to famous Canadians, like Gord Downey wrote lyrics on them.
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It's the first time I've ever done something like this.
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Your word's going to go on a painting that's 10 feet by four feet.
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And I want to get a million people because I want to create something that will live forever,
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that people showed up in 2026 saying this is who we are to the world.
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Most people have never been on a piece of artwork.
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So people are doing it for every family member, every employee.
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You still find out which athlete you're funding.
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And then what we're doing is we're taking all the words.
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So it would be like, Mike, your word, the city you're from.
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And we're putting this in a huge booklet that will travel with the painting.
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My goal is that this artwork will hang in the National Gallery of Canada one day.
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It's an access to something that people will never, I think, ever get to be part of a painting.
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And the small amount to contribute is going to our Canadian athletes.
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I mean, if we got a million people, $25 million, that would fund five applications.
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But it also, the end result is this beautiful canvas that celebrates us.
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I'm so happy the women won gold today already.
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Thanks for helping make this wonderful time possible for all of us Canadians.
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We're enjoying the athletes that you've got behind.