Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowboy89
There is NO economic 'benefit' to blowing away wads of public dollars into winning international tiddily winks contests.
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That, right there, is exactly why this thread has started up, as someone has pointed out earlier.
There is plenty of economic benefit to having gold-medal producing athletes.
All I have to do is look at the our gold medal ambitions in ice hockey (Olympics or World Juniors, both managed by federally-funded Hockey Canada), and realize the latent benefits we get from having world-class athletes don the Canadian jersey. If we were national or perennial on-ice losers, the game wouldn't be as strong as it is today, and wouldn't be the economic institution that multitudes of industries derive benefit from.
Not to mention high-performing athletes and athletic systems can have trickle-down benefits for the general health and interest in sports in today's out-of-shape Canadian population.