It could be abuse by administrators too. We learned from other parents that for at least a year they'd been raising alarms about abuse on two teams that had the same coach who, in front of the director and parents, had admitted that he should go on probation. Instead, the administrators engaged teen athletes in multiple sham investigations. They breached confidentiality and positioned the 14 athletes who had reported abuse as liars. This defamatory insinuation was published widely by them.
Despite their clear duty to protect children from abuse, administrators acted with wanton or reckless disregard for the lives and safety of those children. They not only failed to protect: They added betrayal trauma to the abuse, which is documented in research as being very destructive.
In this context, let us review Canada's criminal negligence law, which states:
Every one is criminally negligent who
(a) in doing anything, or
(b) in omitting to do anything that it is his duty to do,
shows wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons.
Negligence is exponentially more serious when one has fiduciary duty for children, youth and young adults. It is well documented in medical, psychological, psychiatric, neuroscientific and neurobiological research that exposing children to repeat homophobia and misogyny, yelling in the face, belittling, shaming, humiliating, assaulting and threatening, and punishing for speaking up do significant, long-lasting, life-threatening damage to the brain and body.
All forms of child abuse and neglect—and even abuse in adulthood—are extensively documented to damage brain architecture and leave neurological scars visible on brain scans, and to lead to mid-life chronic illness and push some victims onto the path of criminality or suicide.
Let us note: Suicide is the second leading cause of death in our youth populations and is on the rise.
A judicial inquiry is not needed to hear reports of abuse from athletes. They have already reported in great numbers across all sports. A judicial inquiry is needed to figure out why administrators and all others with oversight whose wanton or reckless disregard for the lives and safety of athletes, as well as their alleged victims, are not being charged with negligence.
Our son chose not to play on the hockey rep team at 13. Hockey was one of many sports he gave up in order to give his full attention to basketball. The abuse done to our son, as described earlier, took place on a high school basketball team, and the coaches were certified teachers. The commissioner for teacher regulation and the ombudsperson's office covered up the abuse.
The abusive teacher said that our son was one of the best players the school had ever seen in a 100-year history and that he'd be sought after on college teams. Along with five other athletes, our son—an award-winning athlete—refused to play his final year for the abusive teacher, and he thereby sacrificed his dream of playing at university.
In protest, I resigned as a teacher at that school and began teaching at another one. Within three years at the new school, I witnessed first-hand the commissioner for teacher regulation covering up more abuse. Two educators were exposed as sexually grooming students. One was an administrator, formerly an English teacher. The other was the school principal.
The English teacher now lives with his victim in England as, after he taught at another province in Canada, he was barred from teaching in British Columbia. The commissioner's public discipline report whitewashes his grooming and sexual abuse with the vague statement that he wrote “inappropriate text messages”. He works in a development capacity with teachers.
The principal's victim, even though she had attempted suicide, was asked to participate in a restorative justice process so that the principal would not be charged. The commissioner did not publicly discipline the principal or put any restrictive measures on his teaching certificate—