Federal government creates commission to investigate abuse in Canadian sports

The federal government says it’s launching a commission to investigate abuse in Canadian sports, a matter it deems as a “crisis.”

Minister of Sport Carla Qualtrough announced the new measures on Monday, saying the commission will hold a summit and produce two reports in an 18-month process.

However, she pumped the brakes on a national inquiry as a way to protect victims during probes.

She says the three-person team will have a legal expert as commissioner and two special advisors with courtroom and trauma-based experience.

They’ll be tasked to probe any systemic abuse, harassment and other types of misconduct within organizations in their purview.

Other measures include creating policies to safeguard children and modernize Sport Canada’s funding framework.

Many athletes and others have called for a deep probe into the many matters that went public, most recently controversies surrounding Hockey Canada when it reached a settlement for a sexual assault case from 2017 and using registration fees to pay for it.

READ MORE: Hockey Canada national funding restored with conditions

On Monday, the minister was asked if suspensions potentially loom to Hockey Canada athletes involved in that case.

“The research I’ve done on this is a complicated one, it involves a lot of employment law, criminal law, contract law mismatch, I’m not sure I have the authority to do that or the teeth to do that, but also we don’t the outcome, the final outcome of this I would say,” Qualtrough said.

Qualtrough added that suspending an organization’s funding is a possibility if they fail to comply with the new federal program.

She says the commission will be established early in the new year but no date is set for when they’ll begin work.