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Canada’s secretary of state for sport says the government is keeping Hockey Canada under increased monitoring for the foreseeable future as a condition of federal funding.
Adam van Koeverden told CBC News that Canada’s national governing body for hockey has made progress addressing its culture, but there is more work to be done.
“It’s not just a matter of a box-checking exercise,” he said in an interview. “We’re talking about a massive shift in culture that requires transparency and accountability and a lot of time.”
That monitoring will continue to be done by Sport Canada and van Koeverden’s office, he said.
The federal government paused Hockey Canada’s funding in 2022 over its handling of a high-profile case. A woman known as E.M. reported a group of 2018 World Junior players sexually assaulted her in a London, Ont., hotel room. A judge recently found the five players not guilty.
The federal government says it will restore funding to Hockey Canada following controversy linked to its handling of alleged sexual assault claims. But the government warns this will not be a blank cheque and sets out expectations for the organization going forward.
Hockey Canada came under intense public scrutiny three years ago for quietly paying E.M. a settlement. Hockey parents were outraged to learn their registration fees were going into a reserve fund without their knowledge and used to pay out millions of dollars in sexual abuse claims over the years. A parliamentary committee investigated, sponsors paused funding and the head of Hockey Canada and its entire board resigned.
The government restored Hockey Canada’s funding in 2023 but it came with strings attached. The organization has had to submit quarterly reports to the federal government about its progress addressing recommendations in three independent reports including by a former Supreme Court justice.
Hockey Canada confirmed to CBC News it has completed all of the recommendations in those reports. Sport Canada said it’s reviewing that progress and as of July the hockey organization has implemented all of the conditions that were part of its enhanced monitoring plan.
Hockey Canada completed all recommendations
Despite hitting that mark, van Koeverden said there is no date in mind for when Ottawa will drop its extra monitoring.
He wants to see “sustained culture change that Canadians are demanding,” he said.
“We’ve seen good progress from Hockey Canada in terms of leadership change, in terms of governance changes, in terms of their audits,” van Koeverden said.
He pointed to mandatory training for all staff, coaches and athletes competing with Team Canada that’s now in place covering sexual violence and consent. He said training “is just the bare minimum” and that there is a need to change attitudes and behaviour.
E.M. and others’ courage in coming forward, van Koeverden said, sparked a national conversation about the change needed in not just hockey, but all sports.
‘Abuse isn’t endemic to men’s hockey’
In a statement following last week’s ruling, van Koeverden described men’s hockey culture as “problematic.”
Asked by CBC News how he’d describe the culture and what concerns he still has, van Koeverden said he doesn’t think the issues he’s identified are “endemic” to men’s hockey.
“I’m concerned with chauvinism, with sexism, treating women as if they’re objects or something to be attained rather than one’s equal,” he said. “I don’t think that’s unique to hockey, unique to sport.
“I think it is an unfortunate reality that exists in other places, in the workplace, in education and it needs to be called out, needs to be recognized and it needs to change.”
He added “abuse isn’t endemic to men’s hockey” and that if a national conversation about “how we ought to treat each other starts with hockey, I think that’s uniquely Canadian.”
‘You can’t just tick boxes’
A Fifth Estate investigation in 2022 found junior hockey players were the subjects of police investigations in at least 15 cases of alleged group sexual assault since 1989 — half of which surfaced in the past decade. Former junior hockey players and those who study the sport say these incidents have grown out of a culture that has included the pursuit of women as a team sport that can result in group sex.
Hockey Canada is on the defensive over allegations that some members of its gold-medal winning World Junior team in 2018 took part in a group sexual assault, and the organization didn’t do enough to hold players accountable. The Fifth Estate examines the national shame inside Canada’s game, and the disturbing history that suggests this was not an isolated incident.
Laura Robinson, the author of Crossing the Line: Violence and Sexual Assault in Canada’s National Sport, said she wants to see Hockey Canada under enhanced monitoring by the federal government until after the Winter Olympics in 2026.
She pointed to Hockey Canada’s recent announcements about 18 men selected for roles. Hockey Canada appointed an all-male roster to coach its Olympic and World Junior teams. The new general manager and members of the management group for Hockey Canada’s Program of Excellence are also male.
“You can’t just tick boxes and say we’ve got women involved now,” she said.
Hockey Canada says ‘there is still more work’
The Program of Excellence relies on volunteers that come from a pool of Canadian Hockey League employees. The organization said its managers and coaches selected to volunteer have “tremendous experience” working with 15-to-19-year-old male high-performance athletes.
It said Chelsea Geldenhuys has been promoted to senior manager of hockey operations for the Program of Excellence.
Hockey Canada said as part of its effort to increase the number of women coaching in Canada, it helped launch a new program to employ student athletes as coaches while playing university women’s hockey.
The hockey organization also sent CBC News a list of 17 changes its made since 2022 to address hockey culture and safety, including achieving gender equity on its board of directors, adopting a universal code of conduct to prevent maltreatment in sport and becoming one of the first organizations to be a full signatory to the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner.
“While important progress has been made since 2022, there is still more work to be done and we will continue to be transparent and accountable to Canadians as we drive systemic change within our national winter sport,” Hockey Canada chief of staff Jeremy Knight said in a statement.
Hockey Canada said it will “continue to comply with all reporting requests from Sport Canada.”
