How Skate Canada pushed for inclusion in the years leading up to stance on Alberta's transgender policy

Skate Canada’s move as the first sports federation to announce it will no longer hold national- and international-level events in Alberta due to the province’s legislation on transgender people's participation in sports did not come as a surprise to some who know the organization well. 

“Skate Canada’s been working for years to shorten and make the gap smaller between these groups of people that don’t feel welcome,” said two-time Olympic ice dancer Kaitlyn Weaver, who identifies as queer. 

It’s a sentiment shared by Kurt Weaver (no relation), executive director of You Can Play, a group that advocates for 2SLGBTQ+ inclusion in sports. 

“Skate Canada has been great on these issues — inclusion in general across the board,” Weaver said.

On Tuesday, Skate Canada confirmed to CBC News it will no longer host major events in Alberta in response to the province's Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, which permits only athletes assigned female at birth to compete in women’s sports.

That focus on inclusion was in the spotlight in 2022, when Skate Canada became the first federation to remove gender restrictions on skating pairs in its podium pathway program, after already having implemented those changes in its non-elite programs in 2019. 

Now a team is defined as two skaters — rather than the previous definition of one male and one female — allowing skaters to compete at the national level in pairs of any gender. 

“They've done a lot of work to make it inclusive by changing the language within their own bylaws,” said Asher Hill, a former ice dancer, who is now a coach and host of CBC Sport’s That Figure Skating Show.

"There's so much room for different stories and to just open up who can be on the ice and perform and compete at the