Good afternoon, and thank you to the committee for the opportunity to speak with you all today.
My name is Chris Winter. I serve as the director of domestic programs and safe sport with Athletics Canada, the national sport organization for track and field, para athletics, road running, cross-country, race walking, and mountain and trail running. I personally have been involved in the sport of athletics all my life, first joining a track club at the age of nine. I've had the opportunity to represent our country at world championships, the Commonwealth Games and the 2016 Olympic Games.
Athletics Canada is an organization that believes strongly in ensuring diverse and accessible sport, especially through the gender diversity lens. It has in its strategic plan to 2028 the goal to continue to increase diversity, including gender equity, across all roles, as well as to continually improve safe sport policies and governance.
At its core, the sport of athletics and its competition structure provide for equal opportunity to both men and women. Our national team programs provide for a similar equal opportunity for both men and women. With that in mind, a priority of the organization has been to ensure that the boardroom and our national office staff resemble the diversity that our sport sees on the field of play.
In terms of our coaching membership, we see relatively equal numbers of men and women coaching at the grassroots and club levels. However, those numbers tilt heavily towards men at the national level, so we have work to do.
Athletics Canada wants to be recognized as a leader in the growth and development of gender equity, and over the past few years, it was able to take advantage of a Sport Canada grant program to work with Canadian Women and Sport to put the organization through a gender equity audit. This was followed by the formulation of a gender equity action plan that ensures Athletics Canada works toward being a world-leading organization by providing an environment that ensures gender equity and an environment that's safe for all levels throughout our sport; reflects our members by ensuring that we consciously create an organization that is representative of our membership base in all ways; encourages women and men to work together in a sport where they participate equally at all levels, creating success together; and maintains a pathway for women to occupy positions at all levels of office and coaching through a concerted effort.
Recommendations have been produced in the areas of governance, leadership and strategy; recruitment, selection and promotion; values and culture; measurement and tracking; and growing the pool.
One area that was identified as a priority was recruiting and supporting more female coaches so they rise up to the national team and high-performance level. As such, Athletics Canada launched its national female coach mentorship program in the fall of 2021 with great success. That program saw six female coach mentors provide leadership to 16 female coach mentees. In 2022-23, this program has grown again. We now have 11 female coach mentors working with 22 female coach mentees.
Since the establishment of these recommendations, Athletics Canada has also created a diversity, equity and inclusion committee to help drive the necessary change. Over the past 12 months, the DEI committee has been primarily focused on developing a policy of transgender and gender diversity inclusion, which was approved by our board and membership at recent meetings in Ottawa. Attention will now turn to the gender equity action plan.
In terms of safe sport, athletics has not gone without its share of challenges. In 2015, in response to these issues, Athletics Canada was one of the first NSOs, if not the very first, to institute an independent third party to receive complaints of violations of Athletics Canada’s Code of Conduct to Prevent and Address Maltreatment in Sport. Since the inception of the office of the commissioner, the policies, governance and procedures have continually been reviewed and improved. A full suite of policies now exists to ensure not only a safe sporting environment for all participants but also a proper mechanism in place to address any code of conduct violations.
Examples of those policies include athlete protection guidelines, screening policy and screening policy requirements, a whistle-blower policy and a diversity, equity and inclusion policy. Athletics Canada is also in the process of moving to abuse-free sport for all national-level sport complaints, but will retain its office of the commissioner to provide an independent reporting mechanism for complaints that fall outside of that office’s jurisdiction.
On the education and prevention front, which Mark referenced, Athletics Canada is working collaboratively with the sports of volleyball and swimming on the development of a youth safe sport education program designed specifically for youth from 11 to 18 years old. Funding has been provided through the COC. Our hope is that, once built, other NSOs will be able to adopt this program for their own athletes.
I want to close by saying that as the director for domestic programs and safe sport, I am responsible for the safety of our athletes. My priority is to ensure that they are participating in a sport that is safe and supportive, and to ensure that if any of them feel uncomfortable or find themselves in a situation where they believe they are being mistreated or abused, they have the ability to speak up. We must break the culture of silence in sport. I know that I speak for all our organization when I say that we are willing to do our part and support what is necessary to make sport the positive, safe space it needs to be.
Thank you very much.