Allegations of abuse | The word released, the sports community “must take the ball to the leap”

The allegations of abuse and mistreatment that have made headlines since the beginning of the summer are certainly “very disturbing”, but we can also see the other side of the coin, pleads the commissioner for integrity in sport in Canada, Sarah-Eve Pelletier. Because the free speech comes at a time when Canadian sport has a “great need for awakening”, she believes.

Melanie Marquis
The Press

It’s a Herculean task that awaits the ex-synchronized swimmer in her new clothes as a sports integrity commissioner. She takes the reins of the program at a time of great upheaval – for the record, it officially began its activities on June 20, the day that Hockey Canada bosses testified in committee in Ottawa.

Two days later, Minister Pascale St-Onge froze their federal funding. She did the same at Gymnastics Canada a month later. In both cases, we speak of a “toxic culture”. And in both cases, to regain access to public money, it will be necessary to become a signatory of the Office of the Commissioner for Integrity in Sport (BCIS).

We will have to pedal harder, according to the current number of BCIS signatories.

Because out of 90 sports organizations that receive funding from Sport Canada, only 4 currently do: the Canada Games Council, Sport for Life, Volleyball Canada and Weightlifting Canada. As commissioner, Sarah-Ève Pelletier cannot reveal how many organizations have expressed a desire to join.

At most she will say her impression of feeling the tectonic plates move. “People have the courage to speak up right now and the courage to get things done. Now everyone has to take the leap and make the culture change,” insists the lawyer by training.

The importance of being a signatory

“Report an incident,” reads the top left corner of the BCIS website.

The form that appears after two clicks can be completed by an athlete, witness, coach, family member, or someone who has heard of certain information.

But right now, only a handful of people can get down to their keyboard.

It is that an incident that would violate the Universal Code of Conduct to Prevent and Address Maltreatment in Sport (CCUMS) cannot be reported if the organization is not a BCIS signatory – hence, it is imagine, Minister Pascale St-Onge’s ultimatum to Hockey Canada and Gymnastics Canada.

The incident may date back years or even decades.

Where things could get slightly more complicated is if a complaint relates to a situation that arose before the adoption of the 2019 Code by the organization concerned. But “that doesn’t mean we’re going to dismiss it, it’s just that it becomes a little more complex and the office will have to look more carefully at the nature of the complaint,” she said.

“A great need for awakening”

Sarah-Ève Pelletier, who is trained in law, hesitates to make a diagnosis on the state of health of Canadian sport.

“It’s certainly very disturbing to hear the stories that have made headlines over the past few weeks and months. I tend, on my side, to see a great need for awakening, ”she says on the phone from her office in Montreal, where she is based.

And no matter what will be implemented “to fix or shed light on what has happened in the past, there will obviously have to be a major emphasis on prevention and education to ensure that this does not happen. never again”, argues the one who was notably a lawyer at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

That the culture of sport in Canada, she hopes, revolves around “the benefits of sport” rather than behaviors that have “no place in sport at all”.