Thank you, Madam Chair, for the invitation to appear before the committee and contribute to the important mission of providing a safe and abuse-free sport system to Canadians.
Boxing Canada is the national governing body for the sport of Olympic-style boxing. Our goal is to promote, organize and coordinate the advancement of its members of all levels and ages. Our mission is for Canada to become a world-leading boxing nation. We promote, encourage and develop lifelong participation and the highest proficiency in the pursuit of excellence amongst our members.
The protection of physical and psychological safety of all of Boxing Canada’s participants is critical and foundational. Our programming ranges from physical literacy programs for children to national teams proudly winning medals on the world stage to active-for-life participants who coach, officiate and still work the bag for fitness.
The culture of boxing is inherently inclusive. From our esteemed Olympians to our fitness-only programs, everyone is welcome. Boxing gyms across our country cater to every possible demographic group, and Boxing Canada proudly runs programs regardless of gender, income or cultural background. Providing safe spaces for young people to develop confidence, learn self-discipline and meet their individual fitness goals is inherent to our success.
To be completely clear, boxing involves hitting our opponents and, as our athletes remind me, taking a few punches from time to time. Needless to say, boxing has a robust and rigorous series of concussion screening and medical checks. We are proud of the protocols put in place by our officials and coaches to protect the long-term health of our participants.
In recent years, however, those protocols and polices have been expanded to meet a holistic understanding of health. Boxing Canada has adopted, reviewed and reinforced policies and practices to best protect all of our participants.
This has led Boxing Canada to adopt and enact policies that provide structure and accountability for our participants and to our funding partners. These include the adoption of third party reporting; compliance with the abuse-free sport program; a screening policy for our participants; a whistle-blower policy to encourage participants to speak up about potential issues; a diversity, equity, and inclusion policy to check that we are aware of possible barriers to participation; and a gender equity policy to ensure that representation is present at all levels of our organization.
To help us gauge blind spots in our self-evaluation, we have strengthened our athlete representation and engaged ITP in an independent cultural review. Boxing Canada was in the first cohort of sports to go through the cultural assessment and audit tool available through Own The Podium. Our experience with self-reflection has been difficult, profound, but ultimately positive.
No organization, including Boxing Canada, is perfect. Some participants have had negative experiences in our programs. All sport leaders bear responsibility for the situations that have surfaced in our sport. We are committed to preventing these situations in the future.
As a new leader in our NSO, I am personally committed to having an environment that protects the physical and psychological health and safety of every one of our participants. However, efforts to protect our members will never be complete. Measuring outcomes, incorporating feedback from our participants and evolving the standards of practice are a responsibility that boxing humbly and gratefully accepts.
The foundation upon which boxing will fulfill our mission, vision and goals is safe sport.
Thank you, Madam Chair.