(OTTAWA) Federal Sports Minister Pascale St-Onge plans to urge her provincial counterparts to step up their efforts to investigate abuses in sport when she meets with them in February in Prince Edward Island.
Last summer, M.me St-Onge asked the provinces to join the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner, so that it can deal with complaints made at the provincial level, or to develop their own similar program. All the provinces had all committed to doing so, according to the minister, who will want to follow up next month.
“I will ask them what progress has been made, where they are heading, what is their timetable,” she explained on Tuesday when she arrived at the cabinet meeting in the House of Commons.
“It has to be done as soon as possible. I think we face a pressing issue, with stories of abuse and mistreatment at all levels. It shouldn’t be a matter of jurisdiction. All athletes should know who to turn to when faced with these situations. »
The Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner was established last June to handle complaints and conduct investigations related to national-level athletes in sport organizations. Mme St-Onge indicated that any national sports organization that does not join the board by 1er April will lose its federal funding.
As of January 10, 22 of the 64 national organizations are full participants in the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner, but many others have begun the process of joining.
The federal office, however, is limited to complaints and investigations involving national-level athletes. However, Minister St-Onge pointed out that the vast majority of athletes in Canada train at non-national levels, including provincial competitions, as well as those in high schools and community clubs, all of which fall under provincial jurisdiction.
Currently, only Quebec has a complaints system at the provincial level, Sport’Aide, created in 2014.
Mme St-Onge therefore intends to raise this issue when she meets with the provincial sport ministers on February 17 and 18 in Charlottetown, where they will all be gathered for the opening ceremonies of the Canada Winter Games.
Complaints at all levels
Hundreds of athletes from more than a dozen sports have come forward in recent years to accuse coaches and other members of sports federations of different types of abuse.
In some cases, athletes have recounted their attackers using the power at their disposal to award spots on national teams, while others have reported abusive training methods and sexual assaults.
Some concerns have also been raised about the lack of data sharing between provinces, which would have allowed coaches accused of abuse in one province to simply relocate and pick up where they left off in another province.
The Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner received 24 complaints in its first three months of operation, but only eight involved organizations that had already joined the program.
Then, between October and December, another 24 complaints were filed, and 18 were from athletes whose organizations had joined the office. However, only eight of these complaints can be investigated, because the others do not fall under the commissioner’s jurisdiction.