Chronology of Sport Canada activities to enhance safety in sport since 2018

June 2018

• On June 19, Minister of Science and Sport, Kirsty Duncan, held a technical briefing and press conference to announce stronger measures:
  • New provisions in funding agreements will support eligible sport organizations in fostering healthy and safe workplace environments.
  • Federally funded sport organizations must take all necessary measures to create a workplace free from harassment, abuse or discrimination of any kind.
    • They must immediately disclose any incident of harassment, abuse or discrimination that could compromise the project or programming.
    • They must make provisions—within their governance framework—for access to an independent third party to address harassment and abuse cases.
    • They must provide mandatory training on harassment and abuse to their members by April 1, 2020 and are challenged to make this a priority and put mandatory training in place as soon as possible.
  • Sport organizations are required, through an eligibility requirement under Sport Canada’s Sport Funding and Accountability Framework, to have a formal policy to address harassment and abuse in order to receive federal funding.

June-December 2018

• The following funding conditions were added to the contribution agreement by Sport Canada for funding recipients:
  • disclosure of incidents
  • policies review on harassment, abuse, and discrimination issue
  • mandatory training on harassment, abuse and discrimination
  • access to an independent third party
• In collaboration with legal services, ATIP and the ombudsman, Sport Canada hired an external expert to develop an approach for handling disclosures.
• Program analysts started receiving disclosures from recipient organizations when there were situations of harassment, abuse or discrimination. In some cases, the recipient would only disclose once the situation was resolved as it was dealt with by their independent third party.
• Budget 2018 on Gender Equity included dedicated funding to initially support the implementation of new conditions in the contribution agreements (policy development, training, and third party).

January to May 2019

February

• Endorsement of the Red Deer Declaration by all federal-provincial/territorial Sport, Physical Activity and Recreation ministers as a commitment to work together to implement a collaborative, intergovernmental approach to address harassment, abuse and discrimination in sport—in the areas of awareness, policy, prevention, reporting, management and monitoring
• Monitoring with all funding recipients on the status of implementation of new conditions (policies, training, third-party)

March

• Canadian Sport Helpline and Investigation unit pilots launched by the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada (SDRCC)
• Sport Canada supported a study by AthletesCan/University of Toronto on the Prevalence of Maltreatment Among Current and Former National Team Athletes
• Cross-country consultations on safe sport (led by the Coaching Association of Canada) (March to April)
• Budget 2019 on Safety in sport to provide additional and more sustainable support for the implementation of new conditions in the contribution agreement (policy development, training, and third party)

May

• National Safe Sport Summit hosted in Ottawa for athletes, provinces and territories and national sport sector to identify gaps and next steps (1-Development of a universal code of conduct; and 2- the establishment of an independent third party organization at the national level)

June-December 2019

• Development of the Universal Code of Conduct to Prevent and Address Maltreatment in Sport (UCCMS) led by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (June to November)
• Phase 1 Report card on safety in sport, including harassment, abuse & discrimination
• Approval of the UCCMS by the sport sector in December 2019

January-November 2020

• Creation of the UCCMS Leadership Group to support the implementation of the UCCMS
• Development of the Call for Applications for the independent safe sport mechanism in partnership with the UCCMS Leadership Group
• Launch of the Call for Applications for the independent safe sport mechanism

March to July 2021

• Creation of the proposal review committee (including sport sector representatives, experts and athletes) to review applications received
• Review of applications
• Selection of the SDRCC to host the independent safe sport mechanism
• Announcement made by Minister of Canadian Heritage Steven Guilbeault

2022

• Budget 2022 allocation of funds for the implementation of the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner (OSIC)
• The OSIC becomes operational, offering the first phase of its services beginning June 20, 2022
• Reporting of funded organizations on safe sport activities and clauses for 2022-2023 fiscal year (collecting info on training, policy implementation, athlete engagement and timeline for move to mandatory OSIC as third party mechanism – July August

Compilation

In June 2018, the Minister of Sport announced stronger measures for federally funded sport organizations, which included new provisions in funding agreements to support them in fostering healthy and safe sport environments. Federally funded sport organizations were to:

• immediately disclose any incident of harassment, abuse or discrimination that could compromise programming;
• make provisions—within their governance framework—for access to an independent third party to address harassment and abuse cases; and,
• provide mandatory training on harassment and abuse to their members by April 1, 2020.

Sport organizations were required, through an eligibility requirement under Sport Canada’s Sport Funding and Accountability Framework, to have a formal policy to address harassment and abuse in order to receive federal funding.

In light of these new measures, it was determined that Sport Canada’s role was to ensure that federally funded sport organizations have maltreatment policies and independent processes in place and, that when an incident is disclosed, to ensure that organizations activate their internal policies, and that complainants have access to an independent third party to review complaints and conduct investigations, or are referred to the relevant authorities, if required.

Note that to be in compliance with the Privacy Act, no personal information or incident details are kept by Sport Canada.