Status of women committee calls for public inquiry on abuse in sports

Declaring that athletes and advocates have been raising the alarm about abuse in Canadian amateur sports for years, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women delivered a report to Parliament on Wednesday, offering 24 recommendations for steps to curtail maltreatment in sports and improve athlete safety.

Among the committee’s recommendations is that the federal government should establish an independent national public inquiry to explore how the sports system has allowed maltreatment of athletes at all levels to occur.

“The Committee heard that a culture of fear and silence was created over time in competitive sports in Canada, stopping survivors from speaking up and reporting maltreatment,” the committee wrote in its report. “Many witnesses described a culture in which sports organizations choose to protect perpetrators of maltreatment and to silence athletes, partly because it’s a small field of work and people can decide to protect their own interests, their friends or acquaintances over the needs of survivors.”

The release of the report, Time to Listen to Survivors: Taking Action Towards Creating a Safe Sport Environment for all Athletes in Canada, was the culmination of the committee’s seven-month inquiry and comes as the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage continues a parallel investigation of amateur sports.

Athlete safety has come into sharp focus in Canada over the past year after TSN reported in May 2022 that a woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted by eight players from Canada’s 2018 World Juniors hockey team had settled a lawsuit filed against Hockey Canada. In the wake of that report, members of parliament demanded more answers from Hockey Canada about how it had responded to the complaint. Other national sport organizations have also come under scrutiny.

The committee heard from 43 witnesses, including sport minister Pascale St-Onge, and received 19 written briefs. It concluded that while maltreatment can be experienced at any level of sports, there is evidence that shows the risk of experiencing psychological, physical and sexual violence rises as athletes advance to more competitive levels. The committee cited a 2019 survey of more than 1,000 current and retired Canadian national team athletes that reported 47 per cent of retired female athletes said they had experienced psychological harm; 19 per cent said they had suffered sexual harm in sports.

The committee, chaired by Conservative MP Karen Vecchio, has requested that the government table a response to its report.

The committee also recommended that the government should rethink how it grants funding to national sport organizations and that it should introduce measures to ban the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) for abuse survivors who have reported maltreatment.

In a brief to the committee, the Canadian Women’s Foundation, which was founded in 1991 and supports community programs across the country, wrote that NDAs “have become the default solution for organizations, corporations, individuals, and the public sector to cover up sexual misconduct. NDAs allow organizations to protect their reputations and perpetrators to conceal their abusive history from future employers.”

The committee also urged the government to give the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner (OSIC) the power to subpoena witnesses and compel testimony. The OSIC was created last summer and independently investigates abuse complaints of national team-level athletes.

The committee also recommended the creation of a publicly available registry of coaches who are banned from working in the amateur sports system. St-Onge already has pledged that such a registry will be created within the next year.

Several witnesses pointed out the potential hurdles to such a registry system.

Lorraine Lafreniere, chief executive of the Coaching Association of Canada, testified that a national registry is difficult to establish because some provincial and territories have pushed back, citing privacy laws and the threat of litigation. Some coaches have also dodged public discipline by resigning when a complaint is lodged, and then moving to another jurisdiction.

Amelia Cline, a former gymnast, testified that while Gymnastics Canada has a public list of coaches who are currently suspended or banned, its list does not include those who have faced sanctions in the past. Gymnastics Canada’s list also does not specify the reason for sanctions, Kim Shore, another former gymnast testified.

“We don’t know if it was [a financial aspect related to their membership rights], abuse of children or bullying and harassment of a peer,” Shore told the committee.