Thank you.
I wish to share the following insight and observations. As I shared in my remarks to the Standing Committee on the Status of Women in November, the movements for gender equity and for safety in sport are inextricably linked. One cannot be achieved without the other.
Gender inequity and unsafe sport are both structural and systemic issues that share many characteristics. They are rooted in a sport system built in another era, based on societal values and norms that are out of step with contemporary Canadian society. They are deeply embedded in policies, practices, budgets and cultures, making them highly normalized and very difficult to disrupt.
Unfortunately, the burden of advocating and leading systems change typically falls to those being oppressed. These are people working from a place of relatively limited power, and doing this work puts them in an even more precarious position. It is emotional, exhausting and endless work that comes at a high personal cost.
While Hockey Canada is a significant example of these structural issues at play, there is clear evidence of these issues throughout the sport system. This indicates that while the circumstances of a given incident may be unique, the conditions giving rise to these incidences are not. To prevent maltreatment and gender inequity, we must look at these structural issues systemically, effectively looking at the root causes versus the symptoms.
I offer the following lessons from the fight for gender equity over the past 42 years in hopes that they will help to accelerate progress for safe sport.
To date, when dealing with gender inequity, the scale and scope of the solutions have not matched the scope of the problem. The result within the gender equity movement is change that is exceptionally slow, piecemeal, quick to regress and ultimately voluntary, with organizations and leaders opting out entirely as they wish. Without persistent consequential accountability and incentive structures, we have had to rely only on the innate desires of organizations and leaders to change, with the prospect of natural consequences for those who do not.
If we want safe sport to have a different trajectory, we need to be prepared to think and act bigger. The goal must be systemic transformation. Tweaks and one-off programs that leave the current operating system intact are inadequate. Transformation means a comprehensive values-based overhaul of how we design, implement, and measure sport in Canada with government policy and investment that is aligned and supportive.
We need more than a rejection of the status quo. We need a new vision for sport, with a right-sized strategy to get us there, grounded in a clear-eyed understanding of the current system from the grassroots to high performance.
As such, I repeat our call for a national inquiry or another appropriate mechanism that will help us realize this outcome for the entire sport system. We believe this effort will have powerful positive impacts across multiple structural issues and contribute directly to creating a truly inclusive sport system that produces the highest value in the lives of all Canadians.
As ever, Canadian Women and Sport is committed to working with Sport Canada and the national sport community to help realize this potential.
Thank you.