Sport Minister St-Onge says there's 'no coherence' in Canada's safe sport system

Canada's Sport Minister said Monday jurisdictional issues continue to hamper the government's ability to implement a meaningful safe sport system that would properly protect hundreds of thousands of Canadian children, but refuted the suggestion her government was trying to pass on the responsibility to provincial and local authorities.

"I'm not passing the buck to anyone," Pascal St-Onge told the Status of Women committee that is studying Women and Girls in Sport. "The reality is that the sports system touches multiple jurisdictions and I can't fix it alone.

"There needs to be a coherence in this system, and what we're seeing is that there is no coherence right now. And that's part of the things that we need to work on."

Over the past few weeks, the committee has heard testimony from a parade of athletes who have outlined stories of abuse they have endured. 

St-Onge said any kind of abuse in sport is unacceptable, but said her department and the federal government are only responsible for about 3,700 elite athletes who compete at a national level. 

Pointing to a recently published CBC investigation, St-Onge acknowledged that's not where most of the abuse is happening.

"The vast majority of cases of abuse and maltreatment happen outside the federal scope," St-Onge said. "They happen in local clubs, leagues and gyms, all of which are within the responsibility of provincial, territorial and local authority.

"This harsh reality was recently pointed out by an extensive investigative report from CBC. Canadians all over the country are asking us to fill that gap."

In 2019,  a CBC News and Sports investigation revealed more than 200 coaches — mostly at the local level — had been charged with sexual offences against a minor under