Canada's efforts to combat abuse in sports saw slow progress in 2024

Steps to make Canadian sports safer were made in 2024, but to what end?

Steps to make Canadian sports safer were made in 2024, but to what end?

A national commission began cross-country public consultations, an online registry of people sanctioned or under investigation for maltreatment in sport went live and a seismic shift in handling future complaints was announced.

Canada was said to be a long way from the culture change identified as key to draining sport of toxic behaviour.

"The progress is definitely slow and a bumpy ride," said Erin Willson, an Olympic artistic swimmer and past president of AthletesCan, which provides a unified voice for national-team athletes.

"The big question that I've wrestled with probably for the last seven or eight years is how do we change the culture of sport? It all comes down to the values of sport, what are we valuing and what are we praising? I really do believe that everything trickles down from there.

"It's all well and good if we can tell each other that we should treat people better, but when the only thing that we're celebrating is winning … we're never going to be able to change."

Bruce Kidd, a University of Toronto professor emeritus in sport and public policy, gives Canada a middling grade in safe sport for 2024