WARNING: This story contains graphic details some readers may find disturbing. Sport Minister Pascale St-Onge says there's a "systemic problem" of sexual violence and toxic masculinity in Canada's hockey culture that Hockey Canada has failed to change.
Her comment was a response to a Fifth Estate investigation that identified at least 15 group sexual assault cases involving junior hockey players investigated by police since 1989 — half of which surfaced in the past decade.
At least 50 players have been accused in the alleged crimes. Half were charged and only one was convicted after taking a plea to a lesser offence, the Fifth Estate found. "We're talking about a systemic issue," St.-Onge told CBC News on Thursday. "We've heard these stories before.
It's not the first time we talked about the toxic culture in hockey. But nothing has been done, or not enough has been done in the past ten years.