Canada wants to fix its sports system. So what's the game plan?

Back in March, the federal government's Future of Sport in Canada Commission delivered a 952-page report based on its findings from a nearly two-year deep dive into the national sports system. Bankrolled by more than $10 million in federal funding, the commission was a key part of the government's response to a wave of reports and allegations of abuse and mistreatment that surfaced in the wake of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Its mandate was to make the Canadian sport system not just safer but better overall.

What the commission found, in short, was that the system needs an overhaul.

Describing it as "broken, fragmented and, in its present form, unsustainable," the report presented nearly a hundred calls to action for changing the Canadian sports structure over the next five years. The recommendations included an immediate funding increase and, longer term, the creation of a Crown corporation to oversee sports and physical activity across the country without being subject to "political pressure."

"The work must begin now," said Lise Maisonneuve, the former Ontario Chief Justice who headed the commission. "In many settings, and for far too many people, [the Canadian sports system] has caused and continues to cause real lasting harm."

In her preface to the report, Maisonneuve identified several "profound" challenges, from "underfunding and governance deficits, duplication of efforts among organizations, fragmentation and a lack of integration of policies and programs, to an unhealthy focus on high-performance outcomes over participant safety and dignity."

"At times," she wrote, "we wondered whether this can even be described as a 'sport system' given the pervasive problems that exist." She closed with: "Change is