Thank you.
My name is MacIntosh Ross. I'm the coordinator of Scholars Against Abuse in Canadian Sport. Together, we're over a hundred professors and dozens of graduate and undergraduate students.
The whole purpose of our group has been to echo and amplify the voices of survivors, voices that, when I and some like-minded colleagues started this organization, we felt were already enough to prompt a national inquiry, but why I am specifically involved hasn't really been discussed publicly. It's really pretty simple.
In listening to the brave survivors who came forward seeking an inquiry, I remembered myself as a little boy, when I was just 10 years old. Much like Gordon Stuckless, the infamous Maple Leaf Gardens abuser, a man I trusted tried to lure me into sexual acts with sport. In my case, he exploited my fandom of the goaltender Patrick Roy. He offered me a hockey card that I could never have possibly afforded if I would simply massage his genitals. I was lucky. I said “no” and I was able to leave, but the damage was done, and the damage is still being done. Every time a survivor is ignored when they call for a national inquiry, that part of me, that little boy, fears that there won't be meaningful and sustainable change to this system.
It took me years to open up to my parents. For sport survivors to come forward, it can be an excruciating experience, but they do it because they want this to stop. They want the next generation of athletes to not have to deal with this anymore. They want there to be a safe space for sport in Canada.
At Scholars Against Abuse in Canadian Sport, there are over a hundred of us who stand in agreement, shoulder to shoulder with survivors, saying that there needs to be a national inquiry and that this is a human rights issue from the grassroots right up to the elite level. The abuse is broad. It's racism, ableism, homophobia and sexism. It's overt and systemic. It's experienced by athletes, coaches, officials and even spectators. It's physical and it's psychological. It's completely out of control.
Sport administrators are not equipped to foster the kind of meaningful sustainable change the system needs. The current abuse crisis in Canadian sport can't be solved by existing mechanisms. It won't be solved by Sport Canada, and it won't be solved by some extension of Sport Canada, because it's not a sports issue. It's a human rights issue within sport. If I hurt my knee while lecturing, I'm not going to go to another historian for a diagnosis because it happened in a classroom; I'm going to go to a physician.
Sport can't turn to sport right now. It must turn to human rights experts, health professionals and independent legal experts. We know this. I think we all know this. The Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children knows this. It's calling for a national inquiry, too, and for good reason.
There's a lot I would like to say, but I'm going to keep it limited. I want to focus on the fact that both the Prime Minister and I are boxers. A lot of people think that boxing is a lonely sport, but that's just not the case. You have your corner tasked with looking out for your best interests.
Politicians, like boxers, sometimes can get caught up in the heat of competition, but sometimes we need our corner to just throw in the towel and save us from ourselves. I hope that Mr. Trudeau would be in the corner of the Canadian people. Throw in the towel on this sport system and save it from itself. It's not an act of surrender. It's not an act of judgment against those involved. It's an act of love—love for athletes, coaches and officials who need you more now than ever. Throw in the towel.
Thank you.