National sport organizations face safe-sport deadline, risk losing funding

A flurry of national sport organizations signing up with the new Office of the Sports Integrity Commissioner is expected in the coming days, or their funding could get cut off.

The office with lawyer and former artistic swimmer Sarah-Eve Pelletier at its helm was established as one remedy to Canada's safe-sport crisis.

Athletes have been testifying before parliamentary committees in recent months about the sexual, emotional and physical abuse they've experienced pursuing their sport at the highest level.

Most national sport bodies have an in-house process for complaints, which athletes said left them at risk for retaliation and more abuse.

The Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner (OSIC), which is an independent division of the Sport Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada, was established to take the complaint process away from the NSOs.

Canadian sports minister Pascale St-Onge made Saturday the cutoff for any national sports organization that gets federal money to become a signatory and comply with the Universal Code of Conduct to Prevent and Address Maltreatment in Sport (UCCMS).

"We expect all national sport organizations to become signatories of the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner by April 1, 2023," St-Onge told The Canadian Press in a statement Thursday.

"I am very proud of the great progress that has been made in just a few months. Almost all NSO are now members of OSIC, and this is a significant step toward a safer sport system in Canada.

Of the 63 national sport organizations that receive Sport Canada money, 41 were listed as signatories as of Thursday with another 15 committed to complying soon.

"We need action from sport organizations," Pelletier told The Canadian Press.

"We need action from