In Canadian Para sport, there are typically two models for how a sport is governed at the provincial and national level.
How these sports are governed has a significant impact on their growth, their advertising opportunities, and their chance to be in the public eye. In other words, it's a double-edged sword with significant consequences either way.
Some, like wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby, boccia, and goalball, are separate from their non-disabled counterparts. All the others, ranging from track and field to skiing, live underneath the structure of the able-bodied equivalent sport. Para (formerly sledge) hockey, for example, is governed by Hockey Canada. Some call this an integrated model.
Peter Leyser, executive director at Boccia Canada, said being a separate organization can have its benefits and its drawbacks.
"I would suggest it allows us to have hyper focus, quite frankly," Leyser said of the organization that has been in operation for more than 40 years. "So we have focused resources, and whether that be from a financial perspective, from a staff perspective, we know we're exclusively dealing with athletes with disabilities, and that's where our resources are going to. That's where our time is going to. That's where our energy is going to. "
Leyser said that there are some concerns when it comes to being a separate organization as well and that the four Para sports that aren't integrated meet regularly to discuss the joys and sorrows of sports administration.
"Perhaps even more so [in] the Para-specific sports you're always concerned about [getting] lost in the mix to Big Brother a little bit, and you want to make sure that there's not a loss of … resources," he said.
Regardless of their national program structure, all Para sports organizations fall under the remit of Sport Canada and the Canadian Paralympic Committee. In some countries, such as the U.S., the committees themselves are more intertwined. In 2019, the U.S. equivalent rebranded to the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, or USOPC, becoming the first in the world to do so. At the time, leaders of the organizations — alongside athletes — heralded it as a powerful change.
"This is a historic moment for the Paralympic movement in the United States," International Olympic Committee president Andrew Parsons shared in a release at the time. "To see the USOPC make this inclusive statement by changing its name demonstrates the true parallel nature of the Olympic and Paralympic movements. This change lays a strong foundation to transform the Paralympic movement as we look toward the Los Angeles Games in 2028 and beyond."
Andrew Parsons, president of the International Paralympic Committee waves the Paralympic flag during the closing ceremony of last summer's Paralympic Games. (Getty Images)At the provincial level, Para sports are most commonly underneath a specific provincial sports organization, or PSO. With names like Para-Sport Quebec and Wheelchair Sports Alberta, these organizations tend to administer a multitude of sports.
Just like everything on the murky sports funding landscape, this set-up isn't universal. Boccia Canada works with a variety of provincial partners, Para hockey has moved under the Hockey Saskatchewan umbrella in its part of the Prairies, and British Columbia has a separate sports organization for wheelchair basketball. But how does an organization choose how to approach running a Para sport within their broader portfolio?
Kyle Paquette is the Paralympic program director at Curling Canada. He began in the role in 2022 and said the position was created, in part, because the organization recognized the need for more attention to be given to the wheelchair version of the sport in order for it to sustain momentum across Paralympic cycles.
"It was never a full-time job before, and it was something that the athletes were ready for," Paquette said. "They were wanting more support. They were wanting more coaching. They were wanting to create a bigger program."
One sticking point for Para sport programs is garnering sponsorship dollars and viewership. Paquette said that being able to leverage the cache, knowledge, skills, and attention given to the able-bodied side of the game helps out with the wheelchair program.
"I think it's often surprising to the average person how much a program like ours costs, on an annual basis, for it to be a competitive world-class program with other nations, the Chinas and the Koreas of the world," Paquette said. "In the absence of of being part of Curling Canada, it would be awfully difficult for us to find ways to fundraise the amount of money to subsidize the the program as a whole."
He also sees tremendous value in the knowledge that the programs can share on the ice.
Paralympic curlers are integrated with Curling Canada, and the Paralympic program director says it benefits from sponsorship and audience reach. (AFP via Getty Images)"Our national program head coach, Mick Lizmore, is in constant dialogue with Renee Sonnenberg, who is the national program analytics expert on the able-bodied side, and we are able to not only get access to more information, but the speed at which we can go about our business, I think, is also accelerated because we share many of our resources with the able-bodied program."
That sharing of resources isn't a one- way street, either, with the Paralympic program leading efforts when it comes to high- performance documentation and intellectual property that both sides can use.
There are concerns among some in Para sport circles that able-bodied sport controversies — that has been seen over the last three years with Hockey Canada — can not only overshadow the work of Para sport athletes, but lead to funding cuts when controversy leads to sponsorship dollars being pulled. In Hockey Canada's case, corporate sponsors were quick to point out that they were only pulling funding from the men's junior program in the wake of assault allegations that are still making their way through the courts.
Paquette said that part of preventing Para sport programs from being ignored by their able-bodied counterparts is about being clear about how the sports can integrate and where separation is necessary for clarity and best results. He's also hopeful that the broader Para sport landscape can further develop its sense of collaboration as the sports continue to grow.
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"We really should be talking about athletes with disabilities … because the majority of Canadians would like to go to a grassroots local program once a week to play wheelchair rugby, or boccia,or goalball or something like that, and have no aspirations to compete at the Para[lympic] level," he said.
Paquette added that, in order to see growth in wheelchair curling, there needs to continue to be sustained momentum at the provincial level.
"The sport of wheelchair curling is quite small. That's just the reality of it. And, if we are to grow the sport, it will depend on provincial associations finding increased ways to create integration and us supporting them in doing so."