Canada's top athletes begin mobilizing to change high-performance culture

Canada's top athletes are willing to repair breaches in trust with those who manage them, say their leaders, but the question is how.

In what she's called a crisis, new Canadian sports minister Pascale St-Onge said there's been reports of maltreatment, sexual abuse and misuse of funds made against at least eight national sports organizations since taking office in October and she expects more.

The minister is holding roundtable discussions over the issue and inviting athlete representatives to the table.

A unified message is needed, said Erin Willson, who is a former artistic swimmer now president of the national athlete association AthletesCan.

About 110 athletes participated in a virtual assembly Thursday evening.

It was moderated by Willson, and Rosannagh MacLennan and Tony Walby representing the Canadian Olympic Committee and Paralympic Committee athletes' commissions, respectively.

"The call was supposed to be a starting point," said MacLennan, a two-time Olympic champion in women's trampoline. "It's by no means the only conversation that we have with athletes."

Safe sport was a bubbling issue in Canada before the recent wave of athlete unrest.

Former Canadian sport minister Kirsty Duncan made mandatory in 2019 harassment and abuse training for athletes, coaches, parents, officials, administrators, the adherence to a universal code of conduct and the establishment of an independent third-party to investigate complaints.

The COVID-19 pandemic slowed national sports organizations in their implementation. Preparing athletes to compete and overcome the pandemic challenges of 2021 Summer Games in Tokyo and 2022 Winter Games in Beijing was the priority.

"I think there is a lot of frustration from athletes just that things