In their most recent “statement” released Wednesday afternoon, Hockey Canada executives wrote, “We have heard you, and we are determined to make the changes necessary to enable us to be an organization that lives up to your expectations and to restore your confidence in us”.
Posted at 9:45 p.m.
This commitment, I applaud it. But I also say this: to achieve this goal, you have only one choice: resign.
Yes, everyone quit!
Resign, members of senior management, who have multiplied errors of judgment and for whom the issues of good governance seem even more complex than nuclear physics.
Resign, because you have demonstrated your incompetence, lost in a parallel universe disconnected from reality.
Since the scandal broke, you have been unable to admit your wrongdoing or make meaningful commitments without some external factor forcing you to do so.
First, your sponsors had to abandon you for you to realize the seriousness of the situation. Without this financial pressure, you would no doubt have continued to walk whistling with your nose in the wind, your hands deep in your pockets and a Hockey Canada jacket on your back, proud of your job and your standing in our sports ecosystem.
Without the decision of the Minister of Sports, Pascale St-Onge, to suspend your funding, you would not have fully understood the seriousness of the situation.
Because if you had done so, you would therefore have been transparent. And you yourself would have revealed that the sums collected from your members’ subscriptions were used to fill an obscure fund, very useful for settling, out of sight of prying eyes, cases of alleged sexual assault, for which you were not not insured.
Instead, it took reporters from The Canadian Press digging through court documents for the news to come out in broad daylight earlier this week. And a shock investigation of Globe and Mail of Toronto, detailing in great detail the operation of this fund, so that you begin to grasp the urgency of the situation.
But it wasn’t enough to take action right away.
No, Justin Trudeau had to get involved. I can’t remember a Prime Minister of Canada saying such harsh and true words about a sports federation.
“I think a lot of people have lost faith in this organization,” he said on Tuesday. […] I’m really, really disturbed by the culture that apparently has crept into the highest levels of this organization. »
PHOTO DARRYL DYCK, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada
Read those words again, leaders of Hockey Canada. The Prime Minister is talking about you. About you and the toxic culture you’ve created.
I know, Hockey Canada executives, you are not used to being treated like this. Your federation is powerful and has enjoyed, until quite recently, immense prestige. Canadian hockey has its flaws, but it remains an inspiring example for many countries wanting to shine in this sport.
Except this time it’s over. In Canada, almost no one admires you anymore. And it’s not the publication of weekly “statements”, a sordid mixture of soft mea culpa and half-promises to improve yourself, that will change anything.
It’s too late for that.
You have already used the contritionful press release trick once, on July 14, in your “Open Letter to Canadians”, in which you announced the reopening of the investigation into the assault allegations. sex involving 2018 Junior Team Canada players.
“We have heard you, and we are determined to make the changes necessary to allow us to be an organization that meets your expectations and to restore your confidence in us”, you wrote then.
Less than a week later, this other revelation – the existence of this obscure fund – forces you to adopt, under popular and political pressure, a new measure: to guarantee that the sums collected in this fund will no longer be used for the settlement of “sexual assault claims”.
How do you conclude this press release? With exactly the same words as those of July 14. The same, not a comma has changed.
However, if you had been serious a week ago, if you had been transparent from that moment on, if you had really wanted from that day to initiate a profound change in the culture of your organization, you would have admitted the truth about this fund. You wouldn’t have waited a week later after being pushed to the wall by excellent journalism and pressure from the Prime Minister.
That’s why we can no longer believe your commitments. We wonder if you are hiding something else from us. Confidence is zero.
If, as you say, you really care about the reputation and good functioning of your federation, I say it again to you, leaders of Hockey Canada: resign, everyone. And leave it to others to rebuild the edifice.