Hello, Madam Chair and members of the committee.
I'm Charmaine Crooks. I'm the newly elected volunteer president of Canada Soccer, and I'm honoured to be the first woman and first person of colour to serve in that role in its 111-year history. As someone who has worked for decades to improve inclusion, ethics and well-being in sport, I do not underestimate the importance of this mandate, and I look forward to serving all of the constituents of Canada Soccer.
I'd like to begin today by telling you about my background as an athlete and volunteer. I hope to use my experience to further the conversation about good governance and safe sport in Canada.
I was born in Jamaica into a family of nine children. I came to Canada when I was six. Canada is where I developed and grew as a person and athlete, where I became a Canadian track and field national team member and an Olympic medallist.
I was the first female athlete in Canadian history to be named to five Olympic Games. As a former international competitor during an era when track and field faced systemic sports ethics challenges, I am deeply conscious of the importance of good governance and ethical leadership to ensure a safe and fair sporting environment.
At the 1996 Olympic Games, I was Canada's flag-bearer for the opening ceremony—partly in recognition of my work off the track with sport organizations and athletes. That honour cemented my commitment to being an advocate for making sport better.
In 2012 I was awarded the Order of Canada for my athletics and volunteer work with the international Olympic Movement, including for my efforts to develop the IOC code of ethics.
As a woman of colour who has been part of the elite global sport system, I've experienced both the wonderful and the unfortunate realities that coexist in sport. Whether abuse comes straight at you or is in the form of microaggressions, the pain and damage are real. As leaders, we have a duty to stamp that out.
I believe I've earned the opportunity and have been elected to take on the leadership of Canada Soccer and to use my experiences to help improve and heal it.
Some of my credentials, which I hope can assist this committee in its work, include my work with the first group of active athletes elected by our peers to the International Olympic Committee as voting members. As an IOC Athletes' Commission member, I have focused on building athlete representation and decision-making in the Olympic Movement and supporting athletes during and after their careers. I also served on the IOC culture and education commissions, the IOC 2000 commission, which was a reform commission, the IOC Ethics Commission, and the World Anti-Doping Agency. I believe these experiences are particularly relevant to the discussion we are going to have today about safe sport.
In addition to my role at the IOC, I was a founding member of Right to Play, which seeks to protect, educate and empower children using the power of sport. I also continued my role as a volunteer board member with the Canadian Olympic Committee and as a member of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Organizing Committee. With that background, I am keenly aware of the power and importance of leadership and sport as vehicles for achieving personal realization, uniting people and driving societal change. I'm proud of my record of advocating for athletes and championing fair, equitable and safe sport.
I have provided that background so that the committee here will understand my purpose: To stand by and advocate for athletes, who deserve our utmost respect and who are the reason we all do what we do.
In my new role as volunteer president, I have a duty to uphold Canada Soccer's mission to provide leadership in the pursuit of excellence in soccer at the grassroots, national and international levels. We strive to lead Canada to victory, but we also encourage all Canadians to have a lifelong passion for soccer and work to ensure that it's the safest sport in our country. We are committed to ensuring that the association delivers on every aspect of that mandate every day. Over the last few years, substantial progress has been made to ensure more board engagement, and certainly, in the last few months, there has been a desire to increase transparency.
The modernization of our board has resulted in the election of a woman of colour as president and of Paul-Claude Bérubé, a Quebec lawyer and person with disabilities, as our vice-president. In recent months, Canada Soccer's leadership has brought an improved approach to how we listen and collaborate. We began work with all of our members and partners to build a better, more inclusive environment for players, coaches, referees, administrators and volunteers.
That work strengthens our record over the last decade plus of building robust safe-sport protocols like the Canada Safe Sport Roster. It's also supportive of our commitments to deliver on equal pay and to ensure that the environments for both senior national teams are set up for long-term success. Those priorities will continue to be a focus during my presidency, and we will achieve further improvements in those areas.
On the topic of inclusion, I want to recognize a key step towards a landmark for women's soccer in Canada: the creation of the domestic women's professional league. At the recent Canada Soccer annual meeting, our membership unanimously voted into membership Project 8, the new women's professional soccer league here in Canada. We are rapidly approaching the day when women's professional teams in Canada will help develop the next generation of women's national team players. I am thrilled for the Project 8 team, and we look forward to the successful future of the league and its players.
Now, our national team players—and all our athletes, referees, members and fans—deserve the very best sports environment. We will continue to work over the next year and beyond to ensure that is the case. On that note, during the past few weeks, as interim and now elected president, I heard from our players, members, partners and fans alike that trust, greater transparency and better communication are crucial to ensuring that we are a stable and strong organization that every Canadian can be proud of. I've heard and I wholeheartedly agree with that input.
In this time of evolution, my mandate, along with the board's, is to continue that work and improve conditions in all areas of our sport. I think we all know that the sports system is imperfect. I'm sure the elected officials who make up this committee know that the best way to make change is to get involved and to usher change from within. That is what I have always striven to do and what I intend to do in my new role.
My key priorities are to ensure that pay equity is realized and that the national teams' budgets are managed effectively to ensure success for our women's and men's programs; to engage in discussions with Canadian Soccer Business to ensure that both parties benefit equally from this partnership and that discussions around the women's game in Canada are continued; to get more people from the business world and more players engaged in governance to ensure that they have a voice in the association's direction, thereby providing more voting power for members and ensuring that the grassroots level has a voice throughout the association; to ensure that full administrative and financial transparency is ensured and eliminate the uncertainty and misunderstandings that led to some of the hardships within the association and with our players; and finally, to build an environment in which people feel safe to participate in our sport and to voice their opinions, and in which diversity is valued and included.
As interim president, I contacted and met with many stakeholders, including territorial and provincial members, players' representatives, alumni, the Project 8 team, CSB and others. As president, I intend to continue that outreach, and have already started that in my first week.
I've lived my life advocating for athletes' rights. I know that to build trust you need to be transparent and actually follow through on what you say you will do. I know what it's like for athletes to make personal and financial sacrifices, to train for long hours, to spend time away from family and to put their minds and bodies on the line to realize their dreams for Canada.
As president, I'm excited for and committed to realizing the current opportunity to heal and move Canada Soccer forward so we continue to grow the grassroots, build on the success of our national teams and truly maximize the potential of the professional game in both the women's and men's games. That commitment includes appearing before you today to address your questions directly and with respect.
In turn, during your questioning I expect members of this committee to display the proper respect and decorum that this important vital topic deserves and to further the principles of safe sport, which include creating safe spaces for solution-seeking and discussion. I, along with my partners and along with all the members, will execute this presidency in the same spirit.
Thank you for your attention. I look forward to answering your questions.
