St-Onge urges provinces to accelerate efforts to make sports safer for athletes

OTTAWA –

Sport Minister Pascale St-Onge says ending abuse in sport will require complaints processes that include provincial-level athletes, not just national ones.

St-Onge and provincial sport ministers will meet during the Canada Games in mid-February where their agenda will include the ongoing effort to address widespread allegations of physical, sexual and emotional abuse in sport.

She says she asked the provincial ministers at an August meeting to look at joining the new federal sport integrity process or creating their own.

The national sports integrity commissioner can only investigate allegations of abuse from athletes at the national level.

But St-Onge says the vast majority of athletes aren’t in that category and only Quebec has its own sports integrity office capable of receiving and investigating complaints.

The national sport integrity office officially began its work last June and has since received 48 complaints from athletes.