Access to Sport

I watched a presentation at today's Livable Community Committee meeting about Regional Recreational Service Agreements — the agreements that allow residents outside Fredericton to use city sports facilities.

Right now, Fredericton subsidizes that use. And some neighbouring areas don't have agreements at all, which means their residents face access fees that are expensive enough to keep people out of sport entirely.

Access to sport is a priority for me, and not a new one. Public sport funding in Canada has been frozen for 20 years, and funding for grassroots is almost nonexistent — most of it goes to high performance. On the board of Cycling Canada, I helped launch a fundraising initiative to support developing athletes and underfunded disciplines. Closer to home, I've helped secure funding for River Valley Cycling to offer programming to youth who wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity.

What I liked about today's presentation and the discussion that followed is the vision: regional collaboration as a practical, fiscally responsible way to make sure people have access to sport. That's exactly the approach we should see more — partners working together on a shared problem, not each community trying to solve it alone.