Canadian athletes ask for raise in monthly `carding' money

Olympic bobsledder Cynthia Appiah is thousands of dollars in debt for her sled's runners and for travel to competition.

Her Canadian teammate Melissa Lotholz recently sought free accommodation in a church while competing in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Olympic rowing champion Andrea Proske says she's still paying off debt, and that her mother planted an extra garden to grow fruits and vegetables to meet her caloric needs when Proske trained and raced on a tight budget.

With the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris on the horizon, Canada's athletes are asking for a $6.3-million raise to the Athletes Assistance Program (AAP), which is informally known as “carding” money, in the federal government's April 16 budget.

A monthly cheque of $1,765 — $1,060 for a development-level athlete — is for living expenses and competition costs their sport's governing body doesn't cover.

“Carding is my main source of income,” Appiah said. “It's pretty much the only thing that I know will be sustainable through a whole year both in and outside of competition.”

More than 1,900 athletes across 90 sports are eligible for AAP, which offers other financial supports such as tuition and child care.

Athletes saw their AAP increase in 2017 by $265 a month, or 18 per cent, in the first raise since 2004.

The latest ask, which would be an increase of 18.8 per cent, is independent of a joint demand by the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic committees for a injection of $104 million into the sport system.

One goes hand in hand with the other, however, as athletes cover costs their national federations can't. Appiah is paying off $10,000 runners for her sled and still has $6,000 on her credit card from travelling to World Cups in Latvia and Austria last year.

The 33-year-old lives with her sister in Toronto “because I can't afford to live on my own in a city like Toronto.”