Safe Sport: Gender Equity Announcement

Speaking Notes
The Honourable Kirsty Duncan
Minister of Science and Sport
Winnipeg, Manitoba
March 14, 2019

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Hello, everyone.

I would like to begin by acknowledging that we are gathered on traditional Indigenous land, Treaty One Territory and the traditional land of the Métis.

I want to thank Allison Sandmeyer-Graves for joining me…she is the Chief Executive Officer at the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and Physical Activity (CAAWS).

Everyone deserves the chance to experience sport.

As a former athlete, coach and judge, I love sport, I live for sport. I know the joys and benefits and challenges of sport participation.

It’s alarming to read statistics about the level of participation of women and girls in sport in our country.

We know that participation for men is 35 percent…while for women it is only 16 percent.

And women make up only about one-third of certified coaches, major officials, and board members in national sport organizations.

So why does it matter if women and girls participate in sport? Or if they continue on a path to becoming coaches, officials or sport leaders?

Because sport has enormous benefits for our physical, mental and social health.

Sport also teaches us life skills, how to set goals, how to push ourselves to succeed, and how to deal with challenges.

Sport also develops leaders…both on and off the field. Leaders who can be creative and support and encourage team members to do their best.

These are qualities and skills that everyone needs—no matter their gender, no matter what path they follow in life.

It is critical that we inspire women and girls to get involved…and stay involved…in sport.

That’s why, in Budget 2018, our government committed to reaching gender equity in sport by 2035.

In fact, I want to see this happen much sooner than that, and I am confident that partners like CAAWS are going to help us get there.

Today, I’m proud to announce that our government is providing $3 million over four years to CAAWS, to support its efforts to increase participation of women and girls in sport, as athletes and as leaders.

CAAWS has a number of ambitious plans to meet these objectives. I’ll let Allison talk about them in more detail, but I want to highlight a few here.

CAAWS will design and deliver a gender audit service for organizations.

Essentially, this means looking at every aspect of an organization through a gender-equity lens…to see if targets are being met or where more work is needed. The scientist in me loves this project because it will yield hard data that can be used to make real progress.

The funding will allow CAAWS to expand the Women in Sport Encouragement Fund…which helps develop more female sport leaders and encourages participation.

These projects will add real depth and strength to our ongoing work to reach gender equity in sport.

That work began last April with the launch of the Working Group on Gender Equity in Sport…when I brought together 12 sport champions to provide concrete actions to achieve gender equity in sport and make sport safe.

I would like to thank all members of the Working Group, particularly the chair, Guylaine Demers, for their commitment, dedication, and important work, and for their input on shaping these two new measures.

At their recommendation, we are creating a Gender Equity Secretariat that will be exclusively devoted to ensuring the increased participation of women and girls in all aspects of sport.

Sport Canada has also launched a Sport Support Program Innovation Initiative that provides funding to eligible organizations to test innovative approaches that encourage women and girls to participate and excel in sport.

In addition to this work on gender equity, our government is committed to the prevention of harassment, abuse and discrimination in sport.

I’ve engaged my colleagues, my department and all of you in the sport community to join me in ensuring the safety of our athletes, children in sport, coaches and officials.

Since being appointed Minister of Sport, I’ve been raising this issue at every opportunity, right across the sport community.

Just yesterday, I was in Toronto, where I announced two important new measures:

• A third-party Investigation Unit to address allegations of harassment, abuse and discrimination; and,

  A toll-free helpline to serve as a professional listening and referral service for victims or witnesses of harassment, abuse and discrimination in sport.

These measures build on a number of announcements I’ve made over the past year to make sport safer.

We want to make sure we are taking action in every area of our sport system.

I’ve changed funding agreements for federally funded national sport organizations…they now have to meet clear criteria to address issues of harassment, abuse and discrimination or the Government of Canada will withhold their funding.

I’ve worked with my provincial and territorial counterparts to sign a historic declaration to tackle and prevent abuse in sport on a collective, national basis.

Our government is supporting the Coaching Association of Canada in its work to develop a national Code of Conduct for sport…which will ensure coordinated action and common sanctioning to prevent abuse in all sports, at all levels.

We’re also supporting AthletesCAN as it launches a sweeping study of abuse and discrimination in sport in Canada…to hear directly from athletes on their experiences of all forms of maltreatment.

The funding for all of these actions flows from a major investment our government made in Budget 2018, when we announced $30 million to support the participation and retention of women and girls in all aspects of the Canadian sport system.

Taken together, these measures are moving us in the right direction…toward a safer, healthier and more inclusive sport system for all Canadians.

Because when we add women, we change the world.

Thank you.