Canadian Parliamentary Committee Cracks Down on Abuse in the Sports Industry

A parliamentary committee in Canada has spent two years investigating claims of toxic culture, sexual and financial abuse within the sports industry. The committee has now issued its report and recommendations. The aim of the recommendations is to enhance accountability and protect athletes, and also hopefully encourage more victims to come forward.

The investigation commenced in 2022 after Hockey Canada had settled a group claim for sexual assault, which included a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). The NDA prevented the victims from speaking out about their experiences and suffering.

The committee regards the use of NDAs as completely unacceptable. The committee recommended that the government should ban the use of NDAs. They then went even further, asserting that all survivors should be released from NDAs that have already signed.

The report rightly highlighted that victims are scared of the repercussions from disclosing abuse. They also added that there are athletes who competed in the recent Olympic Games who are too scared to come forward. To address this issue, the committee recommends the introduction of a formal process for investigating sexual abuse claims, physical abuse claims and maltreatment is called for. The process should be trauma-informed and considerate of the fear with which victims live. As an additional element of encouraging fearless disclosure, it was also recommended that the protection afforded to victims of abuse and whistleblowers must be increased.

Recommendations also include the implementation of mandatory criminal record checks, in particular for all coaches and volunteers, as well as a new database to be able to search past complaints, arrests and convictions of those working in the field.

Further, the committee also called for transparency with regard to the use of finances. They recommended that all national sport organisations should publicly disclose the money they hold and the intended use of that money. This recommendation stems directly from the remarkable disclosure that Hockey Canada used funds that contained players' registration fees (without those players’ knowledge) to settle the said abuse claims.

Interestingly, even though this parliamentary committee has clearly undertaken a thorough investigation, it has also called for a formal, independent, public inquiry into abuse in sports. As yet, the Canadian federal government has rejected the idea of a public inquiry but has launched a further investigation.

The Canadian government has five months to reply to the committee’s report.

We are interested to see how the government intends to respond to the findings and recommendations. It is promising that societies are taking allegations of sexual abuse more seriously and the report also highlights how sexual abuse can be intrinsically linked to other forms of inappropriate behaviour, on this occasion in a financial context.