AthletesCAN, which represents Canada's national team athletes, along with the Athletes Commission of the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Athletes Council of the Canadian Paralympic Committee, on Thursday jointly announced their call for an increase in funding for the Athlete Assistance Programme (APP). They stressed that the funding increase of $6.3 million is in line with inflationary adjustments since 2017, the last time the programme was amended.

Canada finished 11th in the Olympic medal table at Tokyo 2020, with seven gold, seven silver and ten bronze medals. Their proposal, which includes indexing the AAP to inflation rates in the future, similar to other government-funded initiatives, represents an 18.8 per cent increase in AAP funding.

Ten days earlier, the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and the Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC) had issued an urgent call for a $104 million annual increase in sport system funding, saying the financial health of national sport organisations (NSOs) had become very precarious.

Without a budget or stability, athletes and their performances will naturally suffer significant setbacks. "This is something that is really needed in the sport system," said Kerry Dankers, CEO of Biathlon Canada.

"Stability is something that athletes really need as a foundation for performance. Stability is also very important when it comes to providing accessible, safe and inclusive sport, and all of that can happen when the system is properly funded," said Dankers.