There is a better, safer way for Canadian amateur sports. It starts with smarter funding

When men and women who race down an icy chute in a bobsled and athletes who perform gymnastics routines say their sport federations are not supporting them properly and are, in fact, putting them in harm’s way, that suggests a broad problem.

Add in those who have raised concerns in rowing, rugby, skeleton, synchronized swimming, women’s soccer and wrestling and it’s obvious that there are significant issues to address in Canadian sports.

Some athletes are pushing for independent investigations, with the findings made public, to drive change. Canada’s minister of sport, the Canadian Olympic Committee and individual organizations have, for the most part, sidestepped those calls by doubling down on a change that’s expected to launch this spring: a new safe-sport process that takes the responsibility for addressing allegations of mistreatment out of the hands of federations.

While an independent system is needed, the fix is much bigger than coming up with a better way to report and deal with complaints. Surely it’s better to have fewer complaints to begin with, says Gretchen Kerr, dean of the University of Toronto’s faculty of kinesiology and physical education. The way to achieve that, she says, is an overhaul that includes changing the way sports are funded in Canada — especially at the high-performance level — and how organizations are held accountable, as well as expanding athlete representation in decision-making bodies.

“First and foremost, we need to stop funding sports based on performance only. (It’s) OK if it’s part of the equation, because that’s what elite sport is about. But as long as funding is focused on medals and international rankings without consideration of the process by which those are achieved, then athletes will always remain vulnerable,” Kerr says.

In 2021-22, sports received more than $74 million through the federal government’s high-performance funding arm, Own the Podium, targeted to winning Olympic and Paralympic medals. Core hasn’t increased in Canada in years, so organizations can feast or starve based on medal chances, making the pressure to deliver enormous.

Imagine a different system, says Kerr, where funding is based on the psychological well-being of athletes, injury rates and ability to move into post-athletic careers: “We want sport to do what it says it does, which is provide people with tremendous health and developmental benefits.”

Advocating for funding this way isn’t a knock on Canada’s desire to win medals, she adds.

“A lot of coaches will say, ‘Well, you’re going for mediocrity and you don’t care about medals.’ Absolutely not. We want people to achieve,” she says. “When you treat people with respect and ensure that they’re happy and healthy, they’ll do better at what they do.”

Improving how national organizations are governed and held accountable goes hand-in-hand with changes to funding, Kerr says.

“The norms, the standards, the expectations in sport are changing, to some extent, like they are everywhere else in society … I think sport has been slower than many organizations because (they) are so autonomous, they’re self-regulating and the oversight body — to the extent that Sport Canada serves as that — doesn’t have the capacity or the means or the will, whichever it is, to hold them accountable.”

Four weeks ago, bobsled and skeleton racers raised serious concerns about their federation, adding they feared retribution for speaking out and asked for help from those who supply funding. Sport Canada, Own The Podium and Canada’s Olympic committee essentially deferred to the federation to sort it out through mediation.

As the head of one federation recently put it: oversight of national organizations is “a no-man’s land in Canadian sport.”

The fact that athletes are not routinely involved in decision-making or listened to when they raise alarms is the biggest problem, says Erin Wilson, president of AthletesCAN, the association of national team athletes.

In areas such as gender equity, it’s generally accepted that positive change requires at least 30 per cent athlete representation and that should be the minimum, Wilson adds. And it’s not just numbers: “Is it a token position where they’re just checking the box — well, we have athletes on the board, or we’re consulting athletes — versus the meaningful engagement that athletes are hoping to see.”

Canada’s Minister of Sport Pascale St-Onge said recently: “Sport is supposed to be something positive in someone’s life where they can achieve their best selves.” Athletes and sports leaders such as Kerr are saying Canada’s high-performance system isn’t set up to achieve that goal, and the power to change that lies with her ministry.