Petition for an inquiry into widespread abuse in sports tabled in the House of Commons

There was a further push Friday to undertake a comprehensive examination of what many say is Canada's "broken" sport system.

NDP MP Brian Masse tabled a petition in the House of Commons calling on the Liberal government to undertake an independent public inquiry into widespread abuse at every level of Canadian sport.

"The time is right," Masse told CBC. "Just exposing the problems doesn't always provide the best solutions. That's what an inquiry will do. It will come with recommendations, it'll have resources to make sure that the abusers and the systemic issues are looked at and have real solutions."

The petition, signed by more than 700 Canadians, from every province and territory, was initiated by retired University of Windsor Sport Management Professor Victoria Paraschak. It states that "children and youth have the right to participate in any sport in Canada free of maltreatment, abuse, and harm; Athletes' human rights are being violated with the current sport system approach, which lacks a transparent mechanism completely independent of sport to address maltreatment complaints.

"I think it's pretty clear that sport organizations be it NSOs, universities or local clubs are not dealing effectively with it," Paraschak, who is also a member of Scholars Against Abuse in Canadian Sport, says "How humiliating, as Canadians who love sport and believe in sport to know that this kind of abuse and these accounts that keep coming up have been going on for 40-50 years or longer and we have not been able to solve this dilemma."

The petition is the latest push for a public inquiry and comes after what has been a months long reckoning that has laid bare the extent of abuse in Canadian sport along with institutional failings in