Canadian and international scholars have written a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, calling for an independent inquiry into sports in Canada.
“There needs to be something that digs deeper and looks more at the preventative side of things,” says Western University professor Mac Ross.
Ross spearheaded the Scholars Against Abuse in Canadian Sport letter, saying Canadian athletes deserve better.
“We have human rights experts, law experts, board experts, sociologists, historians. People looking at this through different lenses than the government might be, and coming to very different conclusions obviously than the government has.”
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He says it was important to bring all those voices together and put them shoulder to shoulder with the survivors.
“We’re not lacking reasons or examples as to why this is important right now,” says sports sociologist Cheryl MacDonald.
The letter was signed by 91 individuals from 47 institutions.
It outlines how the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner (OSIC) is failing athletes who are being mistreated.
“The government must appoint a third party to conduct a proper, thorough, trauma-sensitive investigation into the systemic failure of the nation’s sport system,” reads the letter.
Ross says it’s important to have an independent judicial inquiry that can dig in and tease out some of the more complicated matters that he does not think OSIC would be able to do.
“Perhaps they’re a little bit too close at the moment, and in this specific case, maybe it’s time to branch out a little more and get a different perspective,” MacDonald says.
Ross says the aim of the investigation must be to prevent, rather than simply respond, to the abuse.
While there hasn’t been a direct response from Prime Minister Trudeau, other MPs have reached out to Ross to voice their support.
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