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‘Girls’ Pole Push Competition at the Dene Games Competitions’, Arctic Winter Games 2010, Grande Prairie Alberta, March 2010 (Photo: Michael Heine)

Imagine what sport in Canada might look like had Indigenous peoples and their cultures not been colonized? Imagine how Canadians might understand who they are and their relationship to each other if Indigenous sports and games were part of their daily lives? Imagine what values and beliefs Indigenous sports and games might teach Canadians today? Sadly, these questions that invert history are hypotheticals because colonialism, and the settler colonialism that followed, caused serious harm to Indigenous cultures.

Korpreno Tom or Sealing Tom using a harpoon (Photo: Benjamin W. Leeson)

The 19th and 20th century were incredibly hard for the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples in Canada. During that time, they had to make the difficult transition from their land-based lifestyles to living on reserves and settlements, which were poorly resourced. They struggled through disease and starvation. Many of them watched their children being sent far away to residential schools, where they were provided with an impoverished education. Or, through the Sixties Scoop, their children were taken from their homes and placed with white families, never to be seen again. Nearly every Indigenous person wrestled with their loss of language, culture, and identity, in addition to poverty and poor mental and physical health, resulting in a phenomenon called “intergenerational trauma” (also referred to as transgenerational trauma or historical trauma) that Indigenous peoples are working through today.

The state used Euro-Canadian sports to both hasten the process of Indigenous assimilation and to make it complete. Government and church leaders, along with the white middle-class reformers who led the development of Canada’s fledgling sport system, widely believed their version of sports would help civilize the masses and produce a hard-working, patriotic citizenry. They believed their sports were especially productive for socializing Indigenous peoples into Canadian culture because, in their racist imagination, Indigenous peoples were biologically ‘naturally’ good athletes who would willingly take up the new sport forms and, in doing so, readily abandon their traditions, as if Indigenous physical practices were hobbies and not the deep connective tissue that sustained their ways of life and their connections to land. The government even formalized this dogma when, in 1884, it enacted the Potlatch Law through Section 141 of the Indian Act, a federal statute that (still) governs all matters concerning Indian status, bands, and reserves in Canada.

Potlaches, a gift-giving feast that was traditionally used to mark a variety of important milestones and occasions in West Coast tribes and customs, and as a way of celebrating life, were banned first; even though they were a vital part of west coast Indigenous cultures. Other ceremonial practices, like the sun dances that were central to Indigenous cultures on the prairies, were soon added to the list. To fill the void, the government encouraged Indigenous peoples to play Euro-Canadian sports instead. This is when “Indian Sports Days” emerged on reserves; they were usually held in conjunction with national holidays and treaty-day celebrations to reinforce the connection between sports and patriotism. In other words, from a statist point of view, making Indigenous peoples participate in Euro-Canadian sports was important for cultural repression and replacement.

Indigenous peoples did engage in sports and many, especially boys and men (who had more opportunities to play and compete), succeeded in spite of the hard obstacles in their way. The long list of names that comprise the Tom Longboat Awards, established in 1951, is an obvious reminder of their constant presence and achievements in Canadian sport. At the same time, the Awards’ history also demonstrates how much things have changed for Indigenous peoples in sport. The federal government through Indian Affairs created the Awards to stimulate assimilation by rewarding athletes who excelled at Euro-Canadian sports. But by the early 1970s, as Indigenous peoples began to exert their self-determination more broadly, they wanted greater control of the Awards to promote their own messages about integration.

Open air exercises at Mission Indian School under direction of Provincial Recreational instructors, Dec. 1945 (Photo: Jack Long)

The nomination letter for Doug Skead, from the Wauzhushk Onigum Nation (formerly Rat Portage Band near Kenora, Ontario), who would be named the 1971 national Award recipient, is a case in point. His nominator, Peter Kelly, writing on behalf of Grand Council Treaty No. 3, the political organization representing Treaty 3 interests in northwestern Ontario and eastern Manitoba, described Skead as a role model for his people, not because he had acculturated as the state hoped, but because he represented “the Indian person who will always remain undefeated,” thus using a common sports reference to make a strong statement about what “undefeated” meant to them. Kelly explained that Skead had come “through the demoralizing era of residential schools, the tough life of a trapper, guide and wood cutter, and the destructive experiences of alcohol, to become the manager of his band’s corporation and captain of the hockey team he co-founded 20 years before.” When asked by a reporter what advice he would give to youth, Skead, 41 years old, said “hold on to their culture and speak their native language” (cited in Forsyth, 2020).

Indigenous sport has grown tremendously since the 1970s. There are now more Indigenous-only events and more recognition and support for Indigenous sports and Indigenous participation in sports than ever before. The North American Indigenous Games (NAIG) signifies this growth. First held in 1990 in Edmonton, Alberta, the NAIG functioned for many years on a shoe-string budget and struggled with administrative capacity. That it survived those early years was due mostly to Indigenous leaders who were intent on providing their youth with an opportunity to experience competition in a culturally affirming environment. More than 30 years later, the NAIG is now the largest multi-sport gathering for Indigenous youth on the continent as well as an institutionalized part of the Canadian sport system supported by all 3 levels of government and major corporations. As with any system, there are still important challenges to address, which means sport and government leaders need to remain alert to the broader factors that shape Indigenous sport in Canada.

What follows are 2 key advancements, along with their continuing challenges, that have occurred over the past 50 years:

1) Strengthening the Indigenous sport system

In Canada, there exists an Indigenous sport system that is separate from, but connected to, the mainstream sport system. The term “mainstream” refers to the traditional Euro-Canadian or prevailing system of sport in Canada, made up of national, provincial and territorial, and community sport organizations. The relationship between the two can be visualized as a ‘double helix.’ Just as the physical structure of DNA is made of 2 independent strands that are supported by cross-links forming a ladder-like shape, Canadian sport is comprised of an Indigenous sport system and a mainstream sport system that connect at relevant points, creating possibilities for each system to benefit from each other, resulting in a stronger ladder. Even though the Indigenous sport system has been in place for more than a half century, there remains a general lack of knowledge about it, which makes it harder for Indigenous sport leaders to secure the resources they need to serve their peoples and communities, as well as support mainstream partners in their efforts to better serve Indigenous needs and interests.

The Indigenous sport system, as a separate system with governing bodies, rules, and events, emerged in the early 1970s, when Fitness and Amateur Sport, the precursor to Sport Canada, was looking to increase the participation rates of ‘disadvantaged’ Canadians in organized sports and identified Indigenous people as a group needing specific attention. The result was the Native Sport and Recreation Program, which was created to increase sport and recreation opportunities for Indigenous people on and off reserves. From 1972 to 1981, the program flourished as Indigenous organizers throughout the country coordinated local, regional, and national activities in a wide range of events that addressed pressing community issues stemming from colonialism, like the alarming suicide rates, substance abuse, high drop-out rates of students, and violence among families. Even though the program flourished, it was terminated in March 1981 when the federal government shifted its priorities from mass participation to elite sport development.

With the new focus on competitive outcomes, reviewers of the Native Sport and Recreation Program concluded that the range of pursuits fostered by Indigenous organizers like ‘cultural’ activities versus organized sports was outside the scope of initiatives the funding was meant to support and that the programs developed by Indigenous organizers would not produce the high-performance results desired by the federal government. During that time, however, Indigenous sport organizations were established in each province and territory with the mandate to develop activities within their regions. Those organizations are the forerunners to the Provincial and Territorial Aboriginal Sport Bodies (PTASBs) that today comprise the membership of the Aboriginal Sport Circle (ASC), the national voice for Indigenous sport in Canada.

Today, the power imbalance, and the unequal access to resources, knowledge, and capacity, between the Indigenous sport system and the mainstream sport system has been partially addressed in that there is more consistent support for PTASBs and the ASC than before. Strengthening the Indigenous sport system will require governments and other funders to adjust the way they support Indigenous sport by providing multi-year agreements to stop the annual cycle of uncertainty, as well as foster collaboration across government jurisdictions, like sport, education, and health, so that more Indigenous peoples can use sport to address the critical issues they face.

2) Revitalizing traditional Indigenous sports

Tom Longboat (1887-1949), a Canadian runner, standing beside trophies on April 22, 1907. Longboat was one of the best marathon runners in the world during the decade before WWI. (Photo: Charles A. Aylett, Libraries and Archives Canada, C-014090.)

Prior to European settlement, Indigenous peoples had their own sports and games. Their activities, rooted in their land-based lifestyles, spirituality, and views of the universe, were perfectly geared for life on the land. How many Indigenous sports and games there were prior to European settlement is hard to say. Each Indigenous nation, community, and family would have had their own practices, some of which would have been shared across groups and regions, as they travelled from one place to the next meeting, greeting, negotiating, and engaging in competition, as well as ceremony, with other Indigenous peoples.

Present-day language statistics provide one indication of how diverse Indigenous physical cultural practices might have been. Using 2021 survey data, Statistics Canada reported that over 70 Indigenous languages are still spoken in Canada, though that number is decreasing at a worrisome rate, with 4.5% fewer Indigenous people reporting they could carry on a conversation in an Indigenous language and 7.1% fewer Indigenous people reporting an Indigenous language as the first language they learned at home (down from 2016 data). Those statistics are even more distressing in light of UNESCO’s 2010 assessment that all Indigenous languages in Canada are endangered, which prompted the federal government to create the Indigenous Languages Act in 2019 to preserve, promote, and revitalize them. The number of languages still in use today is important because it indicates how many different Indigenous nations are still present and their determination to each keep their language alive. Each nation would have also engaged in their own collection of sports and games, which means Indigenous physical culture prior to colonization, much like Indigenous languages, would have been extremely rich and varied.

Though colonialism has extinguished much of Indigenous physical culture, some of that culture is still seen today. The Haudenosaunee (Mohawk) game of lacrosse is one example. While most non-Haudenosaunee people will know of the competitive version, the game that Montrealer William George Beers appropriated from the Haudenosaunee in the latter half of the 1800s (and then banned from league play), few people may know that traditional forms of lacrosse are still practiced for ceremonial reasons at the community level. Lacrosse was never just about sport to the Haudenosaunee.

The games of the Inuit and Dene peoples in the far north are another example. They were worried about their youth losing their sense of identity, which was rooted in the land. Since they no longer relied on the land to sustain them, they transformed their sports and games into modern competitive formats to remind their youth about who they are and to instill pride in their culture. The Inuit and Dene Games, which are now part of the Arctic Winter Games, are an institutionalized part of the Canadian sport system.

Traditional Indigenous sports and games are still a vital part of Indigenous cultural transmission, though they too are endangered, perhaps even more so than Indigenous languages. But unlike Indigenous languages, there are no statistics that track how many Indigenous people engage in their sports and games today, where they learned how to play them (was it in the home, at school, or a community gathering?), how often they play or compete, or why they do so. The lack of information benefits settler colonialism, which is the ongoing removal of Indigenous peoples from their lands by erasing their cultures and identities. While Indigenous peoples throughout Canada are working hard to keep their cultures alive, there remains a significant amount of work to do where their traditional sports and games are concerned.

Canada has long been a leader in sport and recreation for persons with disability, and it is astounding to consider the contributions made in the last century. This is found in every aspect of disability sport including those for persons with intellectual impairment, mobility disabilities, and deafness. But for the purposes of this article, the focus will be on the earliest programs that focused on mobility disabilities and primarily those with spinal cord injuries (SCI).

The history of adapted physical activity in Canada goes back to 1918 when “Reclaiming the Maimed” was published by Tait McKenzie and James Naismith (Legg, 2000). Years later, and parallel to many nations, sport for persons with SCI began in earnest following World War II. This was due to a large influx of persons with spinal injuries as a result of the war, and changes to medical practice that meant those living with SCI had greatly extended lifespans.

Around the same time, increasing recognition of the importance of sport and recreation for a higher quality of life and its ability to act as a catalyst for other social objectives contributed to the development of new programs being offered in rehabilitation hospitals and wheelchair sport clubs being founded.

The first recorded example of a rehabilitation sport program in Canada was in the late 1940s at the Deer Lodge Rehabilitation Hospital in Winnipeg. Events here included archery, milk-bottle pitching, basketball-throwing, ring-tossing, croquet, and golf-putting (Steadward, personal communication). Other clubs across the country then slowly evolved and these were primarily focused on wheelchair basketball. In the UK, at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Dr. Ludwig Guttmann, a physiatrist, and head of a rehabilitation for veterans with spinal cord injuries, hosted a wheelchair sport event on the same day as the opening ceremonies of the 1948 Olympic Games in London. The local newspaper noted that he hoped one day these Games could evolve into something that paralleled the Olympic Games.

The start of international games

The first international wheelchair sport games were then held back at the Stoke Mandeville hospital in 1952 with one team from the Netherlands. These games would evolve into what would become known as the Paralympic Games. The first of these were held in 1960 in Rome and for a second time in 1964 in Tokyo (Legg & Steadward, 2011; Darcy & Legg, 2016).

Canada did not compete in either, but it was in Tokyo that Canadian orthopaedic surgeon, Robert Jackson, had a chance to meet with Guttmann. Jackson expressed his concern to Guttmann that Canada had focused too much on occupational rehabilitation, while ignoring the benefits of other modalities such as sport and recreation. Jackson promised Gutmann that he would bring a Canadian team to the 1968 Paralympic Games.

But it nearly didn’t happen. Jackson forgot about his promise until 1967 when, as a personal project to commemorate Canada’s Centennial birthday, he and his wife Marilyn invited a few patients from a local hospital to race at the University of Toronto’s Varsity Stadium. After a few months, a formal club was created under the title “Coasters Athletic Club” and Jackson then took the team to 1968 Paralympic Games (Legg, 2000).

During this time, other international wheelchair sport events emerged.

Did you know: It was, in part, due to Reimer’s success that motivated Allan Simpson, a person with polio since the age of 14, to go a little bigger. Simpson, who was living in Winnipeg, and leader of an unofficial ‘Monday Night Club’, asked the organizing committee for the 1967 Winnipeg Pan-American (Pan Am) Games to include a Wheelchair Pan-American Games section. When his request was denied, he decided to organize a separate wheelchair event, which was the first Pan-Am Wheelchair Games in 1967. Simpson also organized the Manitoba and Canadian Wheelchair Sport Associations, spent 30 years working on behalf of Canadians with disabilities, and was one of Canada’s most successful lobbyists. These games evolved into what are now the Parapan American Games, first held in Mexico City in 1999 (Legg, 2000).

First Pan-American Wheelchair Games (1967)

In trying to arrange for the first wheelchair games in 1967, Simpson communicated with counterparts in the United States, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago noting that “the point to this gathering was not necessarily for the love of sport, but instead to build social acceptance and undo the myth that persons with a disability were a burden to society” (Legg, 2000).

The Canadian government agreed to help pay for the Games, but they required a national organization to hold the funds. The Canadian Wheelchair Sports Association (CWSA) did not officially exist at that point, and so, the Canadian Paraplegic Association Board of Directors and others agreed to act as a temporary national association.

CWBL Women’s Nationals with Ontario facing off against BC in 2021. (Photo: Wheelchair Basketball Canada)

A month later in September of 1967, a meeting was held with wheelchair sport leaders from across Canada and a motion presented “that a national wheelchair sports association in Canada be formally established” (Legg, 2000). It was here that CWSA was officially founded with Jackson, the orthopedic surgeon who had promised to bring a Canadian team to the 1968 Paralympic Games, elected as CWSA’s first President.

At the time, Jackson said, “… we should note with some pride that although wheelchair sport may have started earlier in England and the USA, that the Canadian organization was started by paraplegics themselves, with full cognizance of the many benefits that they would receive” (Legg, 2000). Ten of the 14 board members were wheelchair users.

A year later in 1968, Maury Van Vliet, Dean of the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation at the University of Alberta, and Robert Steadward, a University of Alberta undergraduate student (who would later found a research and training centre for athletes with disabilities at the University of Alberta, now called The Steadward Centre, and serve as President of the Canadian Paralympic Committee) helped organize the first National Wheelchair Games, where athletes would be selected for the 1968 Paralympic team led by Jackson.

1970s

Following Canada’s first participation in the 1968 Paralympic Games (along with the 1969 Parapan American Games in Argentina and the 1971 Commonwealth Games in Jamaica), the Canadian team travelled to Heidelberg, Germany in 1972 to compete in their second Paralympic Games (then called the 21st International Stoke Mandeville Games).

In 1976, Canada hosted the Summer Games in Toronto, called the “Olympiad for the Physically Disabled (Toronto)”. This was the first Olympiad with full competition for athletes with amputees and visual impairments.

The addition of different disabilities encouraged organizers to change the name of the event from the “Paralympics” to the “TORONTOlympiad for the Physically Disabled” (Legg, 2000). The term Paralympics was not used because it was believed to signify Games for people who have paraplegia (a type of SCI that affects the lower half of the body). However, the term ‘Paralympics’ would eventually be chosen as the official name with “Para” denoting “in parallel” to the Olympics.

1976: Canada in first Winter Paralympic Games (Örnsköldsvik, Sweden)

Canada’s participation in the Winter Paralympic Games have their origins going back to 1961 when Jerry Johnston started teaching adapted skiing at Sunshine Village in Banff. He helped create the Alberta Association of Disabled Skiing in 1971, and in 1976 the national association was created. The funding for the creation of the association came from money earmarked earlier by the Federal government for the Toronto summer games but was not used due to geo-political issues involving South Africa. This funding also helped create the umbrella group originally called the Coordinating Committee of Sports for the Physically Disabled (CC-SFD). In 1980, it was renamed the Canadian Federation of Sport Organizations for the Disabled (CFSOD) and then in 1989, the name was changed to the Canadian Paralympic Committee (CPC).

1980s

Disability sport and recreation continued to evolve in the early 1980s. For example, icons Terry Fox and Rick Hansen demonstrated how persons with disabilities could achieve excellence through physical activity. The evolution of the sport system also continued. In 1986, University of Alberta Professor Robert Steadward hosted the Jasper Talks, a national symposium on physical activity and disability. This event eventually led to the creation of the Active Living Alliance for Canadians with a Disability (ALA) and the International Paralympic Committee’s VISTA Conference. Leaders of the ALA would then publish the Blueprint for Action helping guide municipal parks and recreation departments to become more inclusive.

Another significant moment in the 1980s included the leaders of the ALA writing the Moving to Inclusion series, which helped guide physical education teachers to make curricula more inclusive for children with disabilities. Steadward would then become the founding President of the International Paralympic Committee in 1989, a position he would hold for 3 terms until 2001. In this role, he initiated the signing of the agreement with the International Olympic Committee whereby any city bidding to host the Olympic Games would also agree to host the Paralympic Games.

1990s

In the 1990s, Canada once again became a global leader by encouraging able-bodied sports organizations to become more inclusive in their programming by providing the same or similar privileges, opportunities, and responsibilities to all national athletes regardless of whether they were able bodied or disabled. Early examples included Swim Canada Natation and Archery Canada.

More recently, Canada hosted its first Winter Paralympic Games in Vancouver in 2010, Parapan American Games in 2015 in Toronto and the Invictus Games in 2017 for war veterans with disabilities and these Games will be held in Vancouver and Whistler in 2025.

The Canada Games, meanwhile, are still the only major Games globally that include events for athletes who are able-bodied, athletes with physical disabilities and athletes with intellectual disabilities, a practice that started in the 1990s.

Inclusion in the Commonwealth Games also has its roots in Canada with Rick Hansen leading the addition of athletes with a disability into the 1994 Games held in Victoria after exhibition events were held at the 1990 Games in Auckland, New Zealand. In 2002, at the Manchester Games, the policy was ratified and every Commonwealth Games since has included events for athletes with disabilities.

Today

Today, Canada continues to be represented and led by outstanding and extraordinary icons in adapted sport. This includes Minister of Sport and Physical Activity Carla Qualtrough; Senator and Canada’s Sport Hall of Fame 2010 inductee Chantal Petitclerc; Michelle Stillwell, former British Columbia MLA and Minister of Social Development and Social Innovation; IPC Athletes’ Council First Vice Chairperson Josh Dueck; former IPC Governing Board member Patrick Jarvis; former Chair of Own the Podium Todd Nicolson; and Danielle Peers, former Team Canada wheelchair basketball player, Tier 2 Canada Research Chair and Canada’s Sport Hall of Fame 2023 inductee.

Thanks to the creativity, tenacity, and vision of a several outstanding leaders, Canada has been a driver of Paralympic sport, and disability sport and we will hopefully continue to move forward with the same commitment, and integrity towards inclusion and accessibility in sport.

The Sport Information Resource Centre (SIRC) has been a pivotal organization in Canada’s sporting landscape for half a century. Founded with the vision to provide valuable research and knowledge to support the sport community, SIRC along with its partners have played a role in shaping sport in Canada. In this exploration of SIRC’s journey, we’ll look at its history, evolution, and contributions it’s made to sport over the past 50 years. 

During that time, SIRC has played a significant role from its start as a national resource library, to the creation of an internationally recognized database, to its evolution into a global knowledge hub. Throughout, SIRC has been at the forefront of facilitating research, discussions, and policy development in the world of sports. And SIRC’s efforts create inclusive spaces for all to participate in sport, which is the essence of sharing knowledge. 

“SIRC has had a very large impact on the Canadian Sport System. I think it has really transformed how we access information, and how the information and data can be used to support all aspects of sport leadership, governance, and how we make decisions. I think it has set a benchmark for data, information, and knowledge access.” ~ Karen O’Neill, CEO of the Canadian Paralympic Committee

How did SIRC become the respected organization it is today? Let’s look at the last 50 years, starting with how it all began. 

1970s to 1980s: Early growth and evolution to national sport library 

The SIRC’s rich history dates back to its incorporation in 1973, when a group of visionary individuals established it. Among those individuals were Abby Hoffman, former 4-time Olympic track and field athlete and the first woman director general of Sport Canada, and Geoff Gowan, a former sports broadcaster, and sport executive at the Coaching Association of Canada (CAC). Their passion for promoting research and disseminating information in the field of sport helped SIRC evolve into a vital resource for the Canadian sports community.  

In its formative years, spanning the 1970s and 1980s, SIRC embarked on a dual journey of early growth and progressing from a collection to a physical library. During this period, SIRC dedicated itself to collecting and disseminating information vital to sports science, coaching and athlete development. The centre swiftly became a go-to resource for coaches, researchers, and sport organizations in search of evidence-based practices and the latest advancements in sports science. 

The SIRC staff with then-CEO Gilles Chiasson (far left) in 1998 (photo: SIRC)

As part of its commitment to become a comprehensive hub, Gilles Chiasson, CEO for SIRC’s first 20 years, guided the transition from a simple collection of key coaching resources within the CAC. Under his leadership, SIRC was established as an independent national sport library at 333 River Rd, Ottawa, where it co-existed with other national sport organizations. This central location made it accessible to the sports community and it thrived as a fundamental resource for coaches, athletes, administrators, sport medicine professionals, and researchers.  

At the time, it also served as only 1 of 3 automated systems for sport documentation globally. SIRC’s data bank was among the top 3 largest in the world with 30,000 pieces. The other 2 major sport documentation centres were housed in Leipzig and Cologne, Germany (Canadian Sport History, 1978).  

“I think SIRC is genuinely a vital part of the system. The ‘simple’ task of collecting information helps democratize that information, instead of information being squirrelled away who knows where. It instead is collected and made available to the system at large. This is an invaluable tool for improvement.” ~ Peter Lawless, sport lawyer, high performance coach, Vice President of the Canadian Olympic Committee, Ombudsperson of the Canadian Paralympic Committee and CEO 2025 Invictus Games

1990s to 2000: Technological advancements and knowledge excellence 

Sport Thesaurus and SportQuest: The 1990s saw SIRC further embrace technology’s potential. SIRC incorporated digital platforms and online resources to make sport information more accessible through its internationally recognized SportThesaurus (over 27,000 standardized terms), and its innovative websites Canadiansport.ca and SportQuest.ca. The organization expanded its reach, engaging with a broader audience, establishing itself as a pioneer in knowledge translation and using technology for sports knowledge dissemination.  

Expansion of SportDiscus: SIRC made significant strides in information accessibility by creating and expanding the SportDiscus, a premier research database in the fields related to sport and sport science. A collaboration with international sport information partners expanded the depth and breadth of resources available through SIRC, allowing researchers, practitioners, and enthusiasts to access a vast repository of scholarly articles, journals and research findings related to sports. 

Debra Gassewitz, SIRC CEO, speaking at the International Association for Sport Information annual meeting in Brazil in 2006. (photo: SIRC)

By this time, SIRC had a reputation as the world’s leading educational resource for sport material. As a result, its SportDiscus was the only sport database recognized by UNESCO and was used in 49 different countries as the authoritative reference for sport-related information and research. Additionally, global recognition by the International Association of Sport Information (IASI) encouraged more than 32 member countries to submit their research material references to SIRC for inclusion in the database. This coordinated effort, helped ensure that Canadians benefitted from domestic as well as comprehensive international content in the database. The same benefits applied to sport researchers worldwide. 

Debra Gassewitz, President, and CEO, led this innovative evolution, marking SIRC’s shift toward the sharing of knowledge excellence. From that point on, the institution would evolve into a critical asset for both the Canadian and international sport ecosystem.  

“SIRC set the standard for evidence-based decision making in the Canadian Sport System and indeed internationally.  The ability to access research and enhance knowledge transfer to performance and development has been entrenched for decades.” ~ Lorraine Lafreniere, CEO of the Coaching Association of Canada

2000s to 2010s: Fostering collaboration and partnerships  

In the 2000s, SIRC strengthened its collaborative efforts by establishing partnerships with various national and international sports organizations, academic institutions, and government agencies. For example, partners included the University of Calgary, University of Manchester, International Olympic Committee, l’Institut National du Sport, de l’Expertise et de la Performance (INSEP), Australian Institute of Sport. These collaborations enhanced the centre’s ability to collect, analyze and share information, a dynamic network within the sports community. 

Essentially, SIRC aimed to explore the realms of research and information in an effort to help solve problems.  

“This one athlete was having a medical concern that was impacting their ability to perform at a high level. I reached out to Debra, and she did whatever magic she does behind the curtain and she provided me, and more importantly my athlete’s treating physicians, with a number of extremely relevant scientific or medical articles that dealt with the exact same issue my athlete was dealing with. It was incredibly useful on a number of fronts. First and foremost, it immediately gave the treating physicians a pathway for treatment. Second, and it’s hard to overestimate the importance of this, the information gave my athlete confidence that what was happening could be resolved and resolved successfully so that they could get back to performing at the highest level.” ~ Peter Lawless on how SIRC helped solve a problem

SIRC’s job board inspiration came from similar reflections on what the sector needed and how to fill such gaps. This time it landed on employment in the sport sector. By 2001, SIRC created the job board as a part of its platform that aimed to cater to the unique job market of the sports and recreation industry in Canada. This focused job board was the first of its kind in Canada. Tens of thousands of postings later, the job board is the go-to resource for both employers and jobseekers for any positions within Canadian sport. Job postings have covered coaching, staffing, hosting, board, and volunteer roles, among others. 

2020s and beyond: Continuing to move forward 

Today, SIRC stands as the essential hub for sport knowledge in Canada. It embodies a commitment to sport and excels at seeing the bigger picture, balancing rigour with reality.  As the first stop for all things sports-related in Canada, SIRC continues to serve both sport organizations and individuals dedicated to the development of sport throughout this nation.  

With a mandate to offer knowledge, evaluation, connections, and outreach, SIRC’s goals aren’t just a mission statement. Instead, they’re a lived reality, where SIRC actively shares knowledge and creates welcoming spaces for everyone involved in the world of sports.  

For 17 years, SIRC has hosted the Sport Canada Research Initiative (SCRI) Conference. At SCRI, people who work, play and volunteer at all levels of sport (from community clubs to national sport organizations) gather together with sport researchers and policymakers to share knowledge and make new connections. The conference format is specifically designed to foster collaboration and engagement. 

SIRC’s expertise lies not just in gathering knowledge but in mobilizing its extensive network of partners to disseminate credible information to a large and precisely targeted audience, maximizing the impact of their content. Through the Canadian Sport Daily newsletter, SIRC provides knowledge, the latest research, news, and job postings. The newsletter reaches Canada’s sport and physical activity sector from coast to coast to coast, including national, provincial, territorial and community level organizations. In the daily newsletter, Knowledge Nuggets are provided for a source of insight, leveraging the latest in research findings, promising practices, and practical resources.

SIRCuit and sport magazines through the years (photo: SIRC)

For a deeper dive into relevant and timely topics that help advance the Canadian sport and physical activity sector, there’s the SIRCuit. Distributed quarterly, the SIRCuit is Canada’s leading sport-related e-publication, delivering evidence-based insights and learnings from a variety of credible sources.  

SIRC’s work is anchored by 3 pillars. The first pillar is knowledge excellence. The second, growing the network and expanding connections within the sport community. And the third is a commitment to forward-thinking approaches to advance the landscape of sports in Canada. SIRC is much more than an information storehouse, it’s a force propelling the Canadian sporting ecosystem toward greater connectivity and knowledge. 

“SIRC occupies a much-needed position within the sport sector, that of a coordinator and disseminator of information.” ~ Milena Parent, professor in Human Kinetics, University of Ottawa

Key initiatives 

SIRC hasn’t only been a repository of respected knowledge but also a catalyst for change in the sports community. Here are several of SIRC’s initiatives that highlight its commitment to sport: 

Kim Gurtler, SIRC’s VP of Operations, speaking about concussions in sport at a Sport North event (photo: SIRC)

Concussion awareness: SIRC played and continues to play a pivotal role in raising awareness about concussions in sports. As high-profile cases like those of Eric Lindros and Sidney Crosby brought this issue to the forefront, SIRC worked alongside stakeholders, including the federal, provincial and territorial governments, to facilitate conversations and develop educational materials. Concussion Awareness Week in Canada was born out of these efforts, which contributes to increased awareness and safety measures in sports. During awareness week in September 2023, SIRC reached 5 million people in the sport community.  

“SIRC’s ability to facilitate nation-wide discussion on important issues that are part of the fabric of the Canadian Sport System is critical. The Canadian Sport Policy and Safe Sport are two primary examples. The organization’s ability to communicate relevant, timely and evidence-based decision making is a hallmark of leadership.” ~ Lorraine Lafreniere

Safe Sport: Recognizing the importance of safe sport environments, SIRC collaborated with the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) to develop the initial Universal Code of Conduct addressing maltreatment in sports (UCCMS v 5.1). This initiative aimed to create safer spaces for participants, athletes, coaches, and officials. SIRC’s role in facilitating these conversations laid the foundation for the creation of the independent safe sport body, Abuse Free Sport. That body is within the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada, which involves all national sports organizations, including SIRC. The work continues as SIRC actively promotes safe sport, best practices, guidelines, and practical tools to further the necessary dialogue to ensure everyone can participate in sport, safely. 

Women in sport: SIRC has been dedicated to promoting gender equity in sports, aligning with the Government of Canada’s 2035 target. Since the inception of SIRC, it has actively engaged in initiatives such as participating in World Conferences on Women in Sport (2002), conducting gender-based literature reviews, and launching educational campaigns. In 2022, with government support, SIRC introduced a bilingual public awareness campaign: “Mom’s Got Game, Vas-y Maman!” That campaign aimed to encourage and support women to stay active after having children. Additionally, SIRC initiated the Experts in the House webinar series, featuring leading experts in sports who focus on vital topics like Girls and Women in Sport. Those webinars have addressed issues such as coaching, career paths, sport participation and mental health. These efforts underscore SIRC’s ongoing commitment to advancing women’s participation and representation in Canadian sports. 

Policy development: Engaging Canadians 

SIRC’s involvement in policy development has also been key to shaping the future of Canadian sports. In 2010, the organization conducted extensive consultations across the country, engaging Canadians from various backgrounds to understand their vision for sports. This resulted in the creation of the Sport Policy in 2012. 

“Debra has set the standard of engagement and listening with purpose that has provided space for Canadians from coast to coast to coast to be heard on the critical issues of the day.” ~ Lorraine Lafreniere

Little more than 10 years later, SIRC once again led extensive consultations. This time for the development of the third Canadian Sport Policy, engaging stakeholders across Canada to ensure that the future of sports aligns with this nation’s aspirations and needs. 

Conclusion 

As SIRC celebrates its 50th anniversary, its remarkable journey stands as a testament to the visionaries, leaders, and dedicated teams that have shaped it into the institution it is today. And as its next phase of growth begins, SIRC will continue to inspire confidence through knowledge excellence, ensuring that Canadians can participate in sports safely, inclusively, and with the support of a knowledgeable community. 

“I’m profoundly grateful for the incredible colleagues within SIRC, the sports community and throughout the country, who have and continue to inspire and collaborate with us. In this ever-changing environment, it’s so important to never stop learning, to actively listen, and to continuously evolve alongside those who share our dedication to advancing positive experiences in the world of sports.” ~ Debra Gassewitz, CEO of SIRC 

Highlights

Every day, athletes are faced with small decisions that have potential to impact their performance, recovery and health. Often these decisions relate to things that may seem comparatively inconsequential to the average person, and can be as simple as what foods to eat, or what activities to avoid or participate in. When it comes to cannabis use, things are no different.

In October of 2018, recreational cannabis use became legal across all of Canada for individuals who are 19 years and older. Data gathered from the years following the legalization of recreational cannabis use suggest that one quarter of all Canadian adults, and nearly half of all Canadians aged 20-24, have used cannabis in the past year (Government of Canada, 2021). Clearly, cannabis use in Canada is widespread amongst the general population. But what should athletes be considering when it comes to using or avoiding cannabis?

In this article I will provide a research-informed exploration of the current state of cannabis use in relation to sport in Canada and provide advice for how sport organizations should approach the topic of cannabis with athletes.

Contextualizing cannabis

To start off, it’s important to understand what cannabis is. The term “cannabis” refers to a group of plant species containing unique molecules called “phytocannabinoids,” or more generally, “cannabinoids.” There are hundreds of different cannabinoid molecules, however, the 2 that most people will be familiar with are called delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), and cannabidiol (CBD). THC is the primary cannabinoid responsible for causing the psychological effects of cannabis that many users are seeking. In other words, THC is responsible for the “high” that many people associate with cannabis use. CBD on the other hand, is generally not thought to cause psychological effects, since it interacts with chemical receptors in the body’s tissues in a different way than THC (Ahston, 2001). While many people tend to focus on the way each of these cannabinoids affect our brain, it’s important to understand that both may have effects on other tissues in our bodies. This is just one of the reasons that athletes should approach cannabis use cautiously.

While any adult in Canada older than 19 can legally use cannabis that contains THC or CBD recreationally, the picture is more complicated for athletes. Firstly, many sport organizations and regulatory bodies list cannabinoids as banned substances in some shape or form. For example, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) bans the use of cannabinoids during the competition phases of the season (notably, CBD is exempt) (World Anti-Doping Agency, 2022). This is also relevant to Canadian athletes participating in U-SPORTS competitions, as these regulations are also enforced by U-SPORTS and the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, n.d.). Secondly, because cannabis has been illegal for a long time, research on the safety of cannabis use has been challenging to conduct in the general population (Haney, 2020) with even less work having been done with athletes (Burr et coll, 2021). Therefore, it is extremely important for athletes to understand that very little research exists surrounding many of the applications of cannabis in sport. For some athletes, each of these facts may be enough to deter from cannabis use, however, research suggests many athletes still use cannabis recreationally (National Collegiate Athletic Association, 2018; Peretti-Watel et coll, 2003), or even for performance enhancement (Lorente et coll, 2005).

Exploring reasons athletes use cannabis

Like many other people, athletes report using cannabis for reasons completely unrelated to sport, including recreational use. In 2018, a study conducted by the NCAA on its own student athletes reported that as many as 25% of athletes use cannabis recreationally (National Collegiate Athletic Association, 2018). In further support of this study, a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature identified similar lifetime and past-year prevalence of cannabis use in athletic populations from countries other than the USA (Docter et coll, 2020).

In Canada, the practice of recreational cannabis use is perfectly legal, assuming the athlete is 19 years or older, and the nature of use does not contradict substance use policies of sporting body regulating their respective sport. Nevertheless, recreational cannabis use, even outside of the competition phase of a season may still present significant risks to athletes. Many cannabinoids can be detected for up to days after the time of use and well after any effects have subsided, in biological samples (Huestis et coll, 1995). Therefore, it is entirely possible that cannabis use outside of, but in near proximity to competition, could trigger a violation. In an effort to avoid these situations, WADA tests numerous cannabinoids as “threshold substances” meaning that a certain level of cannabinoid has to be present in a sample, making it a little more lenient than a zero-tolerance style policy. However, despite the use of thresholds, cannabis related anti-doping violations are not uncommon in Canadian athletics (Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, n.d.).

Outside of recreational use, there is a growing body of evidence that some athletes use cannabis with the intention of improving performance. A survey of ultra-marathon runners showed that cannabinoids are one of the most widely utilized performance enhancing substances in the sport (Campian et coll, 2018). The prevailing thought for how cannabis may improve performance in this sport is that some of the reported effects of THC, such as reduced anxiety, nausea, and pain, may allow athletes to mitigate exercise related anxiety, pain, or exertion, and subsequently perform better.

To date, there is very little research studying cannabis use before exercise. The first studies found that patients with cardiovascular disease reached exhaustion sooner during an exercise test after using cannabis (Aronow & Cassidy, 1974, 1975) Studies in healthy individuals show similar but slightly different results. The first study using healthy participants showed that at a given heart rate, participants were not able to work as hard following cannabis use (Steadward & Singh, 1975). Based on this finding, authors concluded that maximal exercise performance would be reduced. A later study published on the topic that actually did examine maximal exercise after cannabis use showed that participants were unable to exercise for as long during an exercise test of increasing difficulty, providing direct evidence that cannabis did indeed negatively impact maximal exercise performance in healthy individuals (Renaud & Cormier, 1986).

While these studies provide some evidence that cannabis containing THC reduces exercise performance, there are a few caveats that should be considered. The primary caveat to all these studies is that none of these studies utilized exercise tests which mimic real-life athletic competitions, nor do they match the demands of the sports in which athletes most report use of cannabis for athletic performance enhancement. So, to fully understand how cannabis impacts performance, studies should aim to use more relevant exercise tests, particularly ones that mimic the demands of the sports from which athletes report cannabis use.

Additionally, the recreational cannabis available to athletes in today’s consumer market is much different from the cannabis available at the time of these early studies. Today, cannabis users have many more options for how they use cannabis. Although many people think of cannabis as something that is smoked or inhaled, modern day consumers can also eat or drink cannabis products. Recently, a study conducted at Colorado State University looked at the effects of edible cannabis products on numerous different cycling performance tests. Their results differ from the studies conducted 40-50 years ago, showing that cannabis had no effect on performance in the tests they used (Ewell et coll, 2022), nor did they affect the way the cardiovascular system responded to exercise. While all these studies provide valuable insight into how cannabis impacts performance, it should be acknowledged how many questions remain unanswered. For example, does the inhalation method matter? What if cannabis is used further out from when exercise begins? How about if we alter the cannabinoid composition within cannabis?

Each of these questions highlight the fact that right now, there is much more that is not known than is known about how cannabis impacts performance. While there is evidence that cannabis either negatively impacts, or does not impact performance, there is no empirical evidence to suggest that it has any benefits. Furthermore, very little research has systematically evaluated whether cannabis use prior to exercise threatens athlete safety or introduces any additional risk to health. This alone should be a good enough reason for athletes to avoid cannabis use before exercise. Given this, and the fact that cannabis use is banned in competition for many sports, athletes should avoid cannabis use with exercise. Even if cannabis could provide some benefits that outweigh these risks, there is very little existing evidence to suggest that cannabis used in conjunction with exercise should provide any kind of benefit. Athletes, coaches, and sporting bodies should keep a keen eye out for new research in this area that will hopefully emerge in coming years, and further inform our knowledge on how cannabis use impacts performance.

What the research says about CBD and exercise

While the use of whole cannabis within sport is relatively common, many will be aware that the use of CBD in sport is even more popular. In fact, informed choices surrounding CBD are arguably even more important to make, given that CBD is not a banned substance by WADA, and consequently, many sporting bodies. CBD has become an increasingly popular supplement for recovery and performance due to a range of claims including anti-inflammation, antioxidant properties, sleep promotion and pain relief (Gamelin et coll, 2020; Rojas-Valverde, 2021). The prevailing thought is that many of these effects would be beneficial for recovery from intense exercise or activities that are physically demanding on our bodies’ tissues.

While this thought may appear intuitive at the surface, there are many caveats regarding what research exists to support use of CBD by athletes, and whether these effects would be beneficial for athletes. Let’s first address arguably the most prominent claim for CBD, which is that its anti-inflammatory properties are beneficial for recovery. A popular method of testing how well something aids recovery in a research lab is by testing how well athletic performance can be preserved by a given intervention, following some sort of demanding exercise that results in some degree of muscle damage. In other words, studies will often have participants complete an exercise bout, and then measure either tissue damage, or performance in a subsequent bout with and without the intervention (in this case, CBD).

To date, there have been 3 studies (Cochrane-Snyman et coll, 2021; Crossland et coll, 2022; Isenmann et coll, 2021) with human participants which examine whether CBD is effective in mitigating muscle damage and performance decrements associated with resistance exercise. These studies have shown mixed but largely disappointing results. One of these studies showed that CBD can reduce blood markers of inflammation and muscle damage following damaging exercise, and that CBD may have allowed participants to recover back-squat performance 72 hours post-exercise (Isenmann et coll, 2021). However, the 2 other studies examining how CBD might affect muscle damage and fatigue showed that CBD performed no different than placebo, in any measure, performance- or inflammation-related (Cochrane-Snyman et coll, 2021; Crossland et coll, 2022).

Therefore, these studies provide little evidence, if any, suggesting that any potential anti-inflammatory effects of CBD are beneficial for recovery. It’s also important to note that the use of any anti-inflammatory drugs following training may not have intended effects, as studies have shown that inflammation may be important for adapting to training, and these types of products may blunt this response (Owens et coll, 2019). When it comes to pain mitigation following exercise, there is even less research. While there are no experimental laboratory studies assessing whether CBD alters the pain associated with exercise, a survey of rugby athletes demonstrated that although as many as 80% of athletes who used CBD did so with the intent of improving recovery or mitigating pain, only 14% perceived any benefit (Kasper et coll, 2020).

Research on the ability of CBD to improve sleep in athletes is about as equally scarce. Most of the research to date examining the effects of CBD on sleep have used clinical populations rather than athletes, with only one study reporting that CBD improved self-reported sleep onset and perceived quality (Carlini & Cunha, 1981). Another study in healthy participants showed no effects on subjective sleep quality, or objective measures of sleep quality following CBD use (Linares et coll, 2018).

While CBD has mainly been studied as a recovery aid for athletes, there is also potential that some of its purported effects related to benefitting pain and anxiety could create some utility for performance enhancement. To date, only one study has examined the acute effects of CBD on exercise performance, and the body’s response to exercise (Sahinovic et coll, 2022). A research group out of the University of Sydney asked participants to run both at a steady pace and at increasing speeds up to exhaustion after consuming CBD orally. The results of this study showed that despite small differences in the maximal amount of oxygen consumed and feelings of pleasure during exercise after CBD intake, time to exhaustion was not affected, suggesting that CBD does little to alter performance, and likely has only minor effects on the physiological and psychological responses to exercise.

When turning to the research, it doesn’t take long to realize that many of the claims tied to CBD use are largely unproven, and much work needs to be done before athletes should feel like using CBD is unequivocally a good idea. At the moment little evidence exists to suggest that CBD has any benefit for athletes at all, either when it comes to recovery, or performance. In addition to the lack of physiological benefits, CBD may possess its own anti-doping risks. Although CBD is not generally a banned substance, CBD products may actually contain THC, a banned substance. A growing body of research has identified that many cannabis products, including CBD products, are not accurately labelled (Johnson et coll, 2022; Vandrey et coll, 2015). Another analysis of 23 hemp products (a form of cannabis many CBD products are made from) showed that many of them contained a wide range of cannabinoids, with approximately 30% of them containing enough cannabinoids to cause an anti-doping rule violation if samples would have been taken within 8 hours of use (Mareck et coll, 2022).

Final thoughts

For athletes, coaches, and sporting bodies, the landscape of how to approach cannabis use in sport in 2023 remains uncertain. Since legalization of recreational use in Canada, athletes in the country have never had greater access to a range of products marketed for a vast array of claims that may seem attractive. That said, there remains significant gaps in the research that must be filled before cannabis or derivative cannabinoid products can be confidently recommended to any athlete seeking benefits from their use. Given the risks associated with product contamination, and potential unknowns about product safety, there is little reason to suggest that at the moment, any possible benefits of cannabinoid use in sport are outweighed by the current risks.

Highlights 

Quality sport. Values-based sport. Safe sport. Positive youth development. Person-centred sport. Athlete-centred sport. Holistic approaches.   

These are just a few of the many terms used within the sport sector to discuss the different ways in which sport delivery, programs, and culture are approached. Whether you are new to working in sport or an experienced staff member, participant, or even sport parent, it’s not uncommon to hear these terms used and feel a sense of confusion. What do they mean? Why are they important? And most importantly, how can you implement them? 

In this article, we explore 3 approaches to sport program delivery that sport researchers and practitioners alike recommend for their potential to optimize the sport experience: Quality sport, values-based sport and safe sport. We define these approaches, what the evidence says about them, and map out how they are similar or different from one another. 

Quality sport  

Within academic literature, a quality approach to sport participation means ensuring participants view their experiences as enjoyable and satisfying based on their own preferences and values (Evans et coll., 2018). More specifically, researchers define quality participation in sport as repeated exposure to positive experiences, programming, or environments that promote long-term athlete development and participation (Côté et coll., 2014, Yohalem & Wilson-Ahlstrom, 2010). 

There is evidence to suggest when an individual’s needs are satisfied and participants are enjoying their sport experiences, they are considerably more likely to continue to participate in sport (Caron et coll., 2019; Ryan & Deci, 2017). With repeated exposure to positive experiences, they will also be more likely to reap the physical, social, and mental benefits of sport participation (Caron et coll., 2019; Martin Ginis et coll., 2017). This means that prioritizing the quality of programming is important for long-term participation and healthy development 

Figure 1: Sport for Life Society LTD Framework

It is important to acknowledge that organizations apply these definitions in their own way or use slightly different language to express their specific quality sport goals. For instance, Sport for Life uses “quality sport” and promotes the Long-Term Development in Sport and Physical Activity (LTD) framework as a guide for achieving positive experiences in sport and physical activity for individuals over the lifespan. According to Sport for Life, quality sport “is developmentally appropriate, safe and inclusive, and well run.” In other words, quality sport is “good programs, led by good people, in good places.”  

On the other hand, the Canadian Disability Participation Project (CDPP) promotes “quality participation” in sport and physical activity for people with disabilities. According to the CDPP, “quality participation is achieved when athletes with a disability view their involvement in sport as satisfying and enjoyable, and experience outcomes that they consider important.” To achieve quality participation, participants need repeated and sustained exposure to “quality experiences” over time. Six elements contribute to a quality experience (Martin Ginis et coll., 2017):  

To support these elements, appropriate conditions in the physical (for example, accessible facilities, access to equipment), social (for example, coach or instructor knowledge, friendships, family support), and program (for example, program size, funding support) environments need to be in place (Evans et coll., 2018). While the CDPP’s framework was developed for people with disabilities, it can be applied to sport participants in all contexts. 

Figure 2: The CDPP’s blueprint for building quality participation in sport and physical activity.

A variety of practical tools and resources have been created to guide sport organizations and program leaders in fostering quality sport programs. For example, Sport for Life creating a Quality Sport Checklist and a Quality Sport Guide for communities and clubs. Alternatively, the CDPP created the Blueprint for Building Quality Participation in Sport as a tool to help sport programmers foster quality experiences for children, youth and adults with disabilities, which leads to quality participation over time. The Blueprint has also been tailored for children and youth with intellectual disabilities and Autism Spectrum Disorder. Ultimately, creating quality sport experiences involves understanding your programs and athletes unique needs to help identify what values and program components you should focus on and prioritize. 

Values-based sport  

The aim of sport delivery that is values-based is to create an environment that encourages values like (but not exclusive to) good character, physical literacy, community and belonging. Another goal of values-based sport is to create good citizens and well-rounded individuals through sport. However, this approach to sport delivery is more explicit in its use of values and morals to achieve its goal when compared to the other approaches described in this article.  

Adopting and promoting values in Canadian sport has been advocated by communities and organizations like Collaborative Community Coaching (C3)™, the Sport Law & Strategy Group, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES), and True Sport. 

Of particular note, the CCES is an independent, national, not-for-profit organization committed to making sport better. The CCES does so by working collaboratively to activate a values-based sport system, protecting the integrity of sport from the negative forces of doping and other unethical threats, and advocating for sport that’s fair, safe and open to everyone. True Sport is an initiative of the CCES designed to give people, communities and organizations the means to leverage the benefits of good sport from a platform of shared values and principles. As a values-based sport network leader, the CCES believes that activating the True Sport Principles, on and off the field of play, will contribute to a positive shift in Canadian sport culture.  

Figure 3: The 7 True Sport Principles

Values-based approaches operate on the belief that sport has many physical, social and mental benefits but these benefits are not guaranteed by simply participating in sport (Bean et coll., 2018). The 2022 True Sport Report, commissioned by the CCES, recommends that in order for sport to be “good sport,” values and principles need to be put into action (for example, incorporated into policy, practice, and programs) and work together at all times. Informed by recent research, the report suggests that when this occurs, participants and communities alike will benefit.  

Despite being advocated for and implemented in organizations for many years, values-based approaches have not yet been investigated extensively in the academic literature. Nevertheless, the goal remains similar to previous approaches discussed—that is, meeting the basic human and developmental needs of participants.  

While researchers are still investigating whether the explicit teaching of values is necessary for participants to acquire them (as opposed to them being obtained organically from “good sport”), the morals and principles promoted through values-based sport are universally positive (Bean et coll., 2018).  

The key characteristic of values-based approaches to sport programming is that they are intentional and clear with the values and purpose of the activities participants are taking part in. According to Jones and McLenaghen, a good starting point for an organization or club looking to take this approach is to develop a “values-based agreement.” In other words, come together and agree upon your organization’s values and principles and promote them throughout your programming. Part of the CCES values-based education programming also includes a values-based agreement as an essential step in guiding and clarifying your community’s purpose for athletes, coaches and leaders, and meeting the goal of fostering values through your programming.  

The CCES provides additional suggestions for those wanting to make a positive difference in their sport and community:  

Safe sport  

The safe sport movement aims to optimize the sport experience for everyone in sport, including but not limited to administrators, officials, and support staff. To optimize the experience, stakeholders should have the reasonable expectation that the sport environment will not only be free from all forms of maltreatment (for example, abuse, neglect, bullying, harassment, and discrimination), but that it will also: 

Safe sport extends beyond the prevention of physical, psychological and social harm to include the promotion of participant rights (Gurgis & Kerr, 2021). According to Gretchen Kerr, an academic expert and a leader in the safe sport movement, the safe sport movement does not intend to abandon athletic results altogether, but rather places emphasis on healthy, safe, and inclusive methods for achieving performance results.   

As testimonies continue to surface of discrimination, harassment, abuse, and other forms of maltreatment in sport, the body of literature focused on safe sport and safeguarding in sport has grown substantially. In particular, recent studies have demonstrated how unsafe sport environments and maltreatment are contributing to participants’ mental health concerns and withdrawal from sport (Battaglia et coll., 2022).   

For example, in a recent SIRCuit article, a team of researchers (Eric MacIntosh, Alison Doherty and Shannon Kerr) described the findings of a study exploring athletes’ perceptions of safe and unsafe environments in high performance sport. The researchers identified coach and teammate behaviour (like aggression, exclusion, and overstepping boundaries), as well as a lack of resources and inattentive sport system (meaning, lack of accountability, attention, and/or action) as primary contributors to unsafe sporting environments. In contrast, athletes shared that they felt safest when they had a knowledgeable coach, athlete interests were prioritized, regulations were followed, they had access to ancillary support (like, physiotherapy and counselling), and when there was a sense of community among athletes and coaches.  

According to experts, adopting a values-based framework where inclusion, safety, fairness, and accessibility are promoted alongside strategies to prevent harm and abuse appears critical to optimizing  the experiences of sport participants (Gurgis, 2021). With safe sport in mind, Donnelly and Kerr (2018) recommend that sport organizations engage in the following strategies: 

The Universal Code of Conduct to Prevent and Address Maltreatment in Sport (UCCMS) was developed in 2019 by the CCES with SIRC and in collaboration with national and multi-sport organizations, athletes, coaches, researchers and experts in the areas of child protection and safety in sport. The UCCMS 6.0 underwent a recent update by the SDRCC and is a vital tool for communities and organizations when it comes to implementing safe sport practices. The latest version includes prevention strategies for all levels of Canadian sport organizations and guidelines on how to address maltreatment if it occurs.  

UCCMS violations are investigated and sanctioned by the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner (OSIC). The OSIC is the central hub within Abuse-Free Sport, Canada’s independent system for preventing and addressing maltreatment in sport. The Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada (SDRCC) launched the Abuse-Free Sport program in 2022 after extensive research and a national consultation with more than 75 different organizations. The government of Canada selected the SDRCC to develop and deliver this new safe sport mechanism at the national level in 2021.  

Abuse-Free Sport provides access to a wide range of resources, all of it available in English and French, including: 

You can visit SIRC’s safe sport web hub for more safe sport resources, including policy documents and relevant research. For safe sport education and training, the Coaching Association of Canada offers Safe Sport Training, a free online training module. The Respect Group also offers Respect in Sport Training targeted at coaches and program leaders, as well as parents.  

Conclusion  

There are several evidence-informed approaches to sport delivery that researchers and sport organizations encourage, and that you can engage with, to promote positive experiences and combat harmful cultures in sport and society. Quality sport, values-based sport and safe sport are 3 common approaches promoted by sport researchers and practitioners to optimizes experiences and outcomes for sport participants. Although they have their differences, each of these approaches recognizes sport as a context for communities and participants to gain valuable benefits. These approaches promote morals and principles that aim to fulfill basic human needs like belonging, safety, and confidence, which encourage healthy development and overall wellbeing for all sport participants. At the end of the day, the goal of each approach is to encourage positive sport experiences that build thriving people and communities.  

Highlights:

“I don’t coach a sport, I coach life.” – Dane Baugh, Coordinator of Sport Programming, MLSE LaunchPad

Can all sports be considered Sport For Development opportunities?  

Sport For Development (SFD) is the intentional use of sport and physical activity to build healthy communities and help people reach their full potential, often through the integration of sport with positive development approaches to enhance overall effectiveness. In a grassroots youth context, SFD is as much about providing a supportive environment where youth can develop as people, as it is a place to train and compete.

The evaluation report on the 2012 Canada Sport Policy (CSP) showed that while youth initiatives were the most common type of SFD initiative, these were most frequently applied in community-level sport environments and not within high-performance athletics. In other words, while positive youth development approaches are more commonplace in traditional recreation, play, and try-a-sport contexts, competitive sport leaders and athletes have generally not been exposed to training in ways that target and achieve life-skills-based positive development outcomes.

As Canada moves toward the renewal and adoption of a new policy to guide the next 10 years, further integration is anticipated. The 2021 CSP renewal environmental scan, for example, cited recommendations for more equitable and inclusive sport overall that unites different approaches and actors. The 2023 What We Heard research report that will inform the CSP renewal, showed that Canadians believe the sport system has the opportunity to promote positive values and outcomes beyond sport, such as in the home, at school and in the community. Two thirds of respondents on a national survey indicated that SFD approaches should be integrated into other sport participation contexts in the new policy, rather than stand alone as a separate context for participation.

This article draws on recent insights from the Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Foundation’s Change the Culture, Change the Game report. It extends the practical recommendations and approaches voiced by over 8,200 youth and parents in Ontario for sport organizations and administrations looking to act on advancing a more positive culture for youth in sport. We make the case for all sport environments to incorporate an SFD approach and offer examples for how to get started.

Insights on trust, inclusion and youth sport culture

The MLSE Foundation Change the Game research project, implemented in collaboration with Dr Simon Darnell, Director of the University of Toronto Centre for Sport Policy Studies, engaged youth and parents on how issues of sport access, barriers, equity and culture show up for them.

From the perspective of youth, indicators of trust and inclusion remain a concern. In a research sample that is representatively diverse with regard to age, gender, race, geography, ability and household income, 82% of respondents reported not having anyone they feel they can talk to about experiences with racism or discrimination in sport. This increases among Latinx women and girls (89%), youth from Northern Ontario (91%) and youth with a visible disability (94%). While incidents of racism and discrimination in sport remain disproportionately experienced by Black youth, Indigenous youth, women, girls, and youth with disabilities, the perceived lack of trust among teammates, coaches, and the sport provider paints a sobering picture of a sport environment that is not an authentically safe space for those it intends to serve. 

Para hockey youth

Qualitatively, youth and parents shared stories and details of how a culture of silence surrounding issues of safety and quality in sporting environments is perpetuated. Youth who have directly experienced an adverse event report they do not feel comfortable raising or reporting the issue due to a lack of trust that teammates, coaches, or the organization will “have their back.” Further, youth and parents who were aware of a serious incident having affected someone else expressed anxiety about whether to speak up or engage on the issue out of fear of losing their or their child’s spot on a team.

Amidst widespread discourse on Safe Sport and several recent high-profile instances of toxic cultures in hockey, basketball, gymnastics, soccer and across the sporting landscape, it is important to ask what change looks like from the perspective of youth, and how to get there. If more inclusive and positive cultures, trusting relationships, and environments that are physically and psychologically safe for young athletes are the building blocks of the future we want to build, what is our next move?

To start, let’s listen to what they have to say.

Youth and parents call for Sport For Development as part of solution

The 2022 Change the Game research project findings left us with an evidence-based blueprint for how to move forward with making the changes to support youth sport access, engagement, and equity. The incorporation of aspects of SFD in youth sport spaces is key. At MLSE Foundation, we see a tremendous opportunity to utilize sport to address the growing crisis in youth mental health post-pandemic, and a demand for sport programs that develop life skills as much as sport skills.

Of the nearly 8200 young Ontarians whose voices are represented in this rich data set, almost 60% voiced support for sport programs being used to teach and develop social, emotional and developmental life skills within youth. These themes were especially prevalent among youth with disabilities, Black, Indigenous, South Asian, and mixed-race youth, and youth from Eastern Ontario and the Greater Toronto Area.

Youth and parents were clear about how the barriers of affordability, ongoing health and safety concerns, and social factors are leaving too many of them on the sidelines. Prominent social factors relate largely to the post-pandemic reality of decreased social connectedness highlighted in other research including Toronto Foundation’s 2022 Social Capital Report. Canadians, including youth, have less frequent contact each week with individuals outside of their households, and interact in-person with smaller circles of family and friends compared to pre-pandemic. These changes impact ability to engage in team sports, and likelihood of signing up with a friend – a factor that is known to facilitate participation, particularly among girls. Socio-environmental barriers also include lack of access to local facilities and lacking a means of transportation to sport programs, particularly affecting youth in northern, rural, and remote communities in the Change the Game research project. Youth have also been clear about what constitutes a safe and inclusive environment. Youth want a system focused on healthy, prosocial opportunities, provided by organizations where the culture is physically and psychologically safe. Strength-based approaches, where youth’s self-determination and strengths are emphasized and youth are viewed as resourceful and resilient, are foundational to SFD offerings and remind sport leaders and the youth we serve to see themselves in terms of assets and potential, not risks and defects.

Youth and parents signing up to play are seeking a safe place to form or develop healthy friendships and relationships. Alongside affordability, a lack of friends or peers to play with and not feeling welcome or included as part of a team were the strongest barriers to engagement in sport emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic. Having no peers to play with was of particular concern amongst girls. The research also found an extremely strong correlation between sport participation and sense of belonging, highlighting the potential of sport opportunities as strong catalysts for building community among youth, even in the context of post-pandemic social disconnection. These findings emphasize SFD approaches as a vital investment in communities where social connection and capital have been seriously compromised, including sport communities.

Practical steps for advancing a positive culture for youth in sport

Strength-based cultures. Safe spaces to formulate healthy relationships. Positive environments to learn and develop within. Cultural changes of this nature are often cited as priorities for addressing issues of toxicity across the sport landscape, without defining what that could look like in practical terms. Here are five initial areas of focus that sport organizations and administrators can consider when thinking about how to get started.

kids stretching

  1. Promote a welcoming environment: “Make it fun and get it done”

Implementation of welcoming and safe environments for athletes, participants, staff, and volunteers begins at the organizational level by fostering inclusive cultures. Culture is a term that is referenced often in sports, but it becomes increasingly important when we pluralize the word and intentionally consider the unique and diverse lived experiences that individuals bring to each organization.

Taking a more holistic approach in this way allows for organizations to develop, and live, core values that permeate through the work that they do and guide planning, actions and decisions in a way that ensures everyone feels welcome. Principles such as trust and respect, for example, remain vital to creating positive environments, however we encourage sport organizations to develop core values that are meaningful and unique to them and the impact and outcomes they are striving to achieve.

A core value at MLSE LaunchPad, for example, is ‘Our Differences Make the Difference’, which includes the principles of trust and respect but also encompasses the belief that MLSE LaunchPad’s strength is rooted in diverse voices, ideas and lived experiences. Another example is ‘We Are Family’, which includes unconditional care and accountability. Collectively, the effort of leadership, coaches, staff and volunteers working together on action plans on how to live and operationalize values can lead to culturally relevant operations and programming, inclusive hiring practices, and staff training. All of these things ensure that individuals consistently feel physically, psychologically, and socially safe and supported when engaging with an organization and its personnel, programs, clubs or leagues.

  1. Shared reflection: “Identify your blind spots”

Consistently create space to understand what current access, equity, and engagement issues exist within your organization’s membership and community to increase awareness of organizational blind spots and to inform priority-setting and solutions. Engaging community stakeholders to elicit feedback and perspective, in addition to leadership and staff, is vital before any decisions or adjustments are made.

Gathering reflections on statements such as “Sports should help me feel better” and what supports are required for this to be true can help organizations prioritize resources. For example, access to sport opportunities and support with easier access to mental health services was identified as a priority by a large proportion of youth in the Change the Game study. However, understanding what this could look like in a specific space, club, or team requires further reflection and dialogue with its intended beneficiaries.

Practical implementations of intelligence-gathering can take the form of parent and guardian surveys, focus groups, one-on-one conversations, engagement of a community organization with expertise in the area, the construction of a youth advisory council, or other creative ways to facilitate communication between staff and young people. This practice of ongoing two-way communication helps ensure that organizations are making decisions that best suit their members.

  1. Policies and processes that support transparency, development and trust: “Say what you do, and do what you say”

Building a process for active review of internal policies can promote transparency, respect for others, and the ongoing accountability to evaluate the processes that drive an organization. Policies and processes must evolve in lockstep with changing member needs and interests to ensure that organizational priorities and incentives are aligned with those of the communities they serve. Ideally, a continuous cycle of shared reflection will lead to a continuous cycle of organizational review. In turn, this will help create a feedback loop communicating to members and key stakeholders that their voices are valued and acted upon where possible and increasing the likelihood of developing a mutual trust through the collaborative transparency of the process.

Review processes should be formal, scheduled activities and informed by key stakeholder feedback to complement other inputs such as sport accountabilities, research and evaluation insights, and the key sport and non-sport outcomes (for example, youth or community engagement, mental wellness, or sense of belonging) the organization is striving to achieve.

  1. Coaching standards and development: “Youth first, always”

With almost 60% of youth calling for sport and sport programs that teach and help them learn and develop social, emotional and developmental life skills, it is important to see and utilize sport as a vehicle for learning and development. As such, coaching standards and development should reflect this sentiment and incorporate SFD strategies including the explicit transference of life skills that are intended to advance positive youth development.

Just as basketball exercises can teach dribbling skills and hockey exercises can teach stickhandling skills, they can also intentionally teach life skills such as leadership, critical thinking, social competence, or resilience. Sports can and should contribute to the holistic development of youth that have shared the opinion that “I am more than an athlete.” The adoption of a train-the-trainer model, for example, can encourage organizations to review their coach training curricula to assess whether these standards are considered and if coaches are being developed to coach the whole person. Ensuring that staff have both formal and informal mentorship opportunities will provide important professional development opportunities that lead to ongoing learning and benefit the entire community. Ultimately, the leadership of an organization should set the tone throughout the organization and consider this call for prioritizing youth wellbeing in how it reviews, updates, and implements training models for a youth sport landscape whose future is rooted in a SFD mindset.  

coach helps youth hockey player tie skatesIn addition to the “what” that coaches will be teaching and developing, Change the Game further challenges organizations to focus on the “who.” Youth are calling for “coaches who look like me” and organizations have a responsibility to ensure that they implement inclusive recruitment and hiring practices. If 82% of youth are reporting not having anyone they feel they can talk to about experiences with racism or discrimination in sport, the value of lived experience needs to be added to the list of work experience, education, and qualifications that often become the main factors in hiring. While this can look slightly different based on each individual member of the community, the intentionality behind these actions remains consistent and in support of the vital role of the coach in facilitating a welcoming, inclusive, and safe environment that is necessary for youth to recognize and reach their full potential. These considerations can continue to fuel the training of the next generation of leaders in SFD practices and truly help change the game.

  1. Data-driven approaches: “You can’t manage what you don’t measure”

Adopt a data-driven approach to monitoring the quality of internal culture. Applying a data equity lens to collect, anonymize, and use demographic data, including race, gender, ability, and household income will help your organization better understand the evolving needs and experiences of athletes, coaches, and staff.

In short: collect feedback, and most importantly, use it. This will help to deepen understanding, identify blind spots, inform decision-making and monitor progress over time. Learn from external research to pilot bite-sized experiments in SFD approaches – the Journal of Sport for Development and sportanddev.org are great starting places to begin exploring practical, evidence-based approaches to building life skills and other positive youth development outcomes through sports.

It’s ok to start small, as long as you start somewhere. If you are a sport organization who provides opportunities for youth and are interested in having a sounding board or are seeking resources on what an equitable approach to demographic data collection could look like in your setting, reach out to a member of the MLSE Foundation and LaunchPad research and evaluation team any time.

Concluding thoughts

All sports are SFD opportunities in that positive social and economic benefits can and should be expected from sport initiatives at all levels. In the post-pandemic era and during a time of reckoning for the youth sport sector, approaches borrowed from the SFD space offer rich insight into how to engage youth positively at all levels of the sport system. Youth have made it clear that that there is no longer room for sport programs and indeed systems that focus exclusively on physical development at the expense of social, emotional and cognitive considerations.

Highlights

Most of us have been in a situation where we have arrived at an outdoor sporting event only to find that the game has been cancelled or rescheduled due to lightning. But have you ever had the same thing happen because of air pollution? While there is a broad understanding of how to protect sport participants from environmental events like lightning, few people know what to do when the air quality is poor.

To fill this gap, the Sport Information Resource Centre (SIRC) and Health Canada partnered to create and share air quality resources, including an e-learning module, infographics and a policy guide, for outdoor sport stakeholders. In this SIRCuit article, we describe the partnership between SIRC and Health Canada, highlight key information about air pollution and the safety of outdoor sport participation, and outline strategies that sport stakeholders can implement to help protect sport participants from the harmful effects of air pollution.

Throughout the article, we have linked to resources to help you spread awareness and take action in your sport. Together we can clear the air around air quality and the safety of outdoor sport participation!

The partnership

In 2022, Health Canada engaged SIRC to support its initiatives focused on air quality and outdoor sport safety. Health Canada provided SIRC with financial and scientific support for the creation of educational resources and tools for sport organizations, including:

Health Canada and SIRC launched the eLearning module and supporting resources at the Ontario Soccer Summit in Ottawa, Ontario, on February 25, 2023. We will continue to share the resources developed through this partnership via an education and awareness campaign targeting organizations at all levels of sport.

The basics of air pollution

Air pollution is a mixture of chemical, physical and biological agents that contaminate indoor and outdoor environments (WHO, 2022). There are many different types of air pollutants. Some of the most harmful air pollutants to human health include:

Air pollutants can come from many sources. In Canada, the highest emissions of air pollutants have been linked to electricity generation, construction, oil and gas industries, forest fires, transportation, agriculture and wood burning (GoC, 2022a). Environmental events can also contribute to poor air quality. Examples of environmental events that can contribute to air pollution include:

symptoms of smoke exposure

smog symptoms

The effects of air pollution on human health

Exposure to air pollution can lead to a range of short and long-term health effects. While short-term exposure to air pollutants has been linked to symptoms such as dizziness and headaches, long-term exposure has been associated with an increased risk of illnesses such as lung cancer and asthma (HC, 2021). In fact, in Canada, it is estimated that air pollution contributes to 2.7 million asthma symptom days and 15,300 premature deaths each year (HC, 2021).

It is important to note that while the long-term health effects of air pollution can take years to develop, the short-term health effects can occur within minutes of exercising in an environment where the air quality is very poor. This highlights the importance of monitoring air quality when planning or engaging in physical activity.

You may be wondering: who is at risk of experiencing the adverse effects of air pollution? The answer is that everyone is at risk. However, some groups, including, children, older adults and individuals with pre-existing medical conditions are at an increased risk. Although you might not suspect it, people engaging in sports and exercise are at increased risk too. 

The effects of air pollution on outdoor sport participants

Why are athletes at an increased risk? When a person engages in physical activity outdoors, they require more oxygen (Carlisle et Sharp, 2001; Giles et Koehle, 2014). The harder they exercise, the more oxygen their body needs. To meet this increased need, a person must breathe more deeply and more frequently (Carlisle et Sharp, 2001; Giles et Koehle, 2014; EPA, 2011). If the air quality is poor, this increased air intake during exercise means that a person will also breathe in more air pollutants.

Another reason why outdoor sport participants are at increased risk is because when a person exercises heavily, they breathe more through their mouth than their nose (Carlisle et Sharp, 2001; Giles et Koehle, 2014). This means that that less air is filtered through the body’s natural filtration system in the nose, which means more air pollutants have the potential to enter the body (Bateson et Schwartz, 2007).

To summarize, athletes shift their breathing pattern and style during exercise to inhale greater amounts of air. If they are in an area with high air pollution levels, for example, near a busy roadway, they inhale more air pollutants, putting them at an increased risk of health complications.

Poor air quality can also affect athletic performance. When athletes exercise in areas with high air pollution levels, they tend to have a higher perceived exertion (Sandford et coll., 2020). More simply, exercising when the air quality is poor can make outdoor sport participants feel like they are working harder to do the same task. This can mean that athletes can’t perform at the same level as they do when the air quality is good. As you can imagine, this can have considerable implications in outdoor sporting events requiring endurance, like soccer, or timed events, like those in track and field.

The Air Quality Health Index

At this point, you may be wondering what you can do to help protect sport participants from air pollution. The answer is that you can monitor local air quality and make informed decisions about the safety of outdoor sport participation. To do that, you can use the (AQHI).

The AQHI was created to help individuals understand and make decisions about the safety of the air around them. The AQHI presents the relative health risk associated with the combined health effects of air pollutants, including Nitrogen Dioxide, Ground-level Ozone and Particulate Matter. The AQHI is presented on a scale of 1 to 10+, which is further broken down into four health risk categories ranging from low risk (1 to 3) to very high risk (10+).

AQHI risk chart

The AQHI shows observed and forecasted values, so you can use it to measure air quality before and during your event. The AQHI values are accompanied by health messages. These messages can be used to support your decisions around the safety of outdoor sport participation. When reading the health messages, it is essential to remember that outdoor sport participants are considered a high-risk population. As such, more conservative approaches should be taken to ensure their safety.

how to use AQHI

Below are some general guidelines on how the AQHI can be used for planning outdoor activity. As a coach, sport official or leader it is up to you to assess the needs of your participants as well as your environmental conditions to determine if outdoor sport participation is safe.

To access the AQHI visit AirHealth.ca or download the WeatherCAN app on Google Play or in the App Store.

Strategies to limit sport participants’ exposure to air pollution

Sport organizations, coaches and officials are responsible for the safety of their participants. Here are a few things you can do stay informed and limit sport participants’ exposure to air pollution:

Final thoughts

We hope that this article helps get you thinking about air quality and the safety of outdoor sport participation. We encourage you to use this information to start discussions within your organization or teams about the importance of considering air quality when planning and participating in outdoor sports. Remember that when air quality is poor, it is essential to modify outdoor activities to protect the health of outdoor sport and physical activity participants, as poor air quality can impact health.

An important next step for sport organizations is to develop air quality policies that support safe outdoor sport participation. The policies should provide guidance on appropriate actions to take during poor air quality events and establish education and training expectations on AQHI for coaches and sport officials. If you have any questions or need any supports as you begin this process, please do not hesitate to reach out to the SIRC team at info@sirc.ca.

Resources to explore for further learning

Below are some resources that you may find helpful as you work to learn more about air pollution and what your organization can do to help keep your participants safe:

Highlights: 

Dorothy Paul has several decades of experience as an athlete, mentor and facilitator within sport in Canada. But organized sport wasn’t always a part of her life. 

“Growing up, I was the oldest girl of 7 kids, so there wasn’t a lot of extra money for me to participate in sport,” she says. Paul would play outside with her siblings, climbing trees and racing, jumping from tree to tree. 

Things changed after Paul and her siblings watched the Montreal Olympics in 1976. The Olympics inspired new versions of their old games: “We created an obstacle course around the house using saw horses, jumping over the septic tank, all kinds of things. And we would race to see who could do it the fastest. And I guess it accidentally trained me well for middle school cross-country!” Paul says. 

Middle school cross-country led to high school track, soccer, field hockey and rugby, which then led to an over 30-year career in the Victoria Women’s Premier Soccer League. Now, Paul is a master facilitator for the Aboriginal Sport Circle’s Aboriginal coaching modules and has served as an Indigenous Long-Term Participant Development Pathway mentor through Sport for Life. She has held several positions with the North American Indigenous Games, including serving as the Chef de Mission in 2002. 

After retiring from soccer, she started a women’s box lacrosse team, the Victoria Wolves, which she still plays with. But when the world shut down with COVID-19 and Paul had a little extra time to reflect, she started thinking about how the sport system needed to change, and searching for models of what that could look like.  

“For 30 years, I’ve been hearing people say, ‘We need to un-silo, we need to un-silo, so what are we not doing? What’s preventing us from un-siloing?’ Maybe we need to take a different look at systems change and possibly that will spark conversations with people and then they’ll start to do things just a little bit different,” Paul says. 

In doing so, she came across the 2 Loops Theory of Change. 

Exploring 2 Loops Theory of Change 

2 Loops Theory of Change was developed through the Berkana Institute (established in 1992) and specifically an article published by Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze entitled “Using emergence to take social innovation to scale.” The theory seeks to describe and model organizations as living beings with life cycles, rather than as mechanistic entities that are unchanging.  

Fig 1: 2 Loops Theory of Change Diagram, adapted from the Berkana Institute

The theory depicts the processes involved in the transition from one system (the dominant system) to another system (the emerging system). Within and between each system, people take on a variety of roles, including as: 

The theory accounts for the fact that you are both an individual and a member of a system. It also accounts for the fact that change isn’t linear, life’s external forces impact how a system operates, hence why a system can never really remain unchanged. 

This is what originally drew Dorothy Paul to the theory, and what made her start thinking about the potential for using it as a model to inspire reflection and change within the Canadian sport sector.  

“It’s fluid,” Paul says of the 2 loops model, “It’s not concrete. Other systems theories I saw came at it from like a mechanical point of view, where it’s like, ‘Oh, this piece isn’t working? Let’s take it out and replace it with something else and oh, why didn’t that work?’ [Those models] have forgotten that all the pieces of a system rely on all of these other things to exist as well. I like the idea of systems change from a human point of view and a fluid point of view.” 

In their original article, Wheatley and Frieze (2006) write: “Despite current ads and slogans, the world doesn’t change one person at a time. It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what’s possible. This is good news for those of us intent on changing the world and creating a positive future. Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections.”  

Almost everyone is familiar with the idea of growth within a system or sector. What we don’t often talk about is the decline of an organization, system, or sector. Decline is not necessarily failure, it may just mean that the context in which the system exists has changed, and now a different system would be better suited. 

Frieze uses the example of the oil industry. We are all likely familiar with oil’s rise to be the dominant system. As people learned more about pollution, climate change, and fossil fuels, individuals began questioning the system and looking for alternatives. In the 2 loops theory, these people are called pioneers. These pioneers truly gain strength when they begin to connect with each other, forming networks and brainstorming new systems. This occurs at the same time as those resisting any change from the dominant system are saying things like: “we’ve always done it this way,” or “we’re too big to fail.” 

System change isn’t flipping a switch. And dominant systems are not inherently bad. They often have important elements to carry forward or learn from. This is why the roles of “stabilizers” and “hospice workers” are important. They are the people within the dominant system that recognize that change is coming, and work to help the older system transition into the new. In the oil industry example, they are not only the people thinking about how infrastructure can switch from oil and gas to renewable energy, but also the people that consider what will happen to people currently employed by the oil industry and helping to figure out how to transfer their skills elsewhere.  

These roles are important because there’s always a gap between dominant and emergent systems, this is why in the diagram itself, the loops don’t touch. The emergent system isn’t ready to catch and carry everyone from the dominant system right away. The old system needs to be gently wound down in a respectful manner, with its resources redistributed and lessons learned carried forward. Bridge builders are the people that help everyone transition from the dominant to the emergent system. At which point, the lifecycle of the system starts again. 

A conversation with Dorothy Paul 

Paul has presented to different audiences in the Canadian sport sector, using 2 Loops Theory to suggest a pathway for change and instill reflection within individuals and organizations. SIRC chatted with Paul to dive deeper into some of her thoughts on our changing sport landscape.  

SIRC: What do you think are the most pressing issues that we’re facing as a sport sector right now?  

DP: Our current sports system is based on volunteerism. With COVID, volunteerism has almost disappeared. So either our system is going to have to really adapt or we’re going to have to really look at ways of restructuring things, how we do things at the community level, at the provincial and territorial sport organization level because we’re not going to have people to train athletes to move through the system and we’re not going to be able to pull our coaches, our administrators from the system of volunteers as we have been. I don’t know what the answer is for that, but I think we need to consider: how did other countries make that transition? And what did they do to make that transition? Because I think in Canada we aren’t going to rely on volunteerism much longer. 

Even though this is kind of an older change theory, I think it still has value because it takes into account all the outside influences. In the last little while because all of the things that have been happening in the media, like Safe Sport, diversity and equity, those things have really been pushing the current system and have been at the forefront for the past 4 or 5 years. Which is why I think we’re somewhere here [points to the middle of the 2 loops, during which a dominant system is transitioning through hospice and decomposing, and another system is emerging on its way to communities of practice].  

For example, the system has created courses for people to take to ensure that we understand as coaches and as workers in this system that we’re educated on these things that are coming forward and pushing our system in an emerging direction. But for the volunteers that are coming through, they’re thinking: “I just want to coach right now, but now I have to do Safe Sport workshops and coaching workshops, and a criminal record check! Do I really want to spend 3 weeks to become a coach for a 4-month season?” We have to recognize that when you get down to the community level, sometimes volunteers don’t want to spend that much time, they just want to go and coach. So with the Rule of Two, Safe Sport and all of the other courses that have cropped up in the last 5 years, people are hesitant or walking away from wanting to participate in the sport system. I’m also seeing a lot of movement within sport administrators, a high turnover in organizations. Which makes me think that we could still be here [points to left side of model with pioneers leaving the dominant system]. 

SIRC: How can we use the 2 Loops system to think about that problem? 

DP: I think we need to pay attention to how we’re treating people in the system. The people who are part of the resistance, or the stabilizers, or the hospice, that takes a lot of time and energy. We need to be really understanding: “What does this employee in front of me bring to the table and what are their real strengths? Does the position we put them in actually suit how their brain works?” When people are in a position where it’s a great fit for them, they’re going to do all kinds of work.   

What I’ve seen in the system today, really, is if you’re not working 100 hours a week, you’re not producing, so therefore you’re not valuable to us. That’s not sustainable. I think COVID got a lot of people thinking, “do I really want to consistently do 100 hours a week for a system that views me as expendable?” 

So, it’s really looking at how we can keep the good people that are in our system and support them so that they want to stay for a longer period of time. I’m even thinking even just in mainstream sport [as opposed to Indigenous], it’s harder and harder for people to be an employee for life. People come in, they’re employed in one area for 3 to 5 years and then they move on to something else. What do we need to do as employers within the system to ensure that our employees feel supported and valued?  

The current system as it is feels safe, the “this is what we know, therefore we’re going to keep doing it.” So now it’s a question of how do we share new information in such a way, like with all the Safe Sport programming, where we can translate it into our place of employment, our administration, our organization? That’s where we need those stabilizers, bridge builders and hospice workers.  

SIRC: What’s the response been like from when you’ve done presentations on 2 Loops within the sport sector? Does it resonate with people? 

DP: One of my presentations, I physically made the loops with rope and asked people to stand on where they thought they fit in the system. Nobody wanted to stand on a dominant system because of the type of conversation we had around that. But there’s a reason we need those dominant people.  

I like the terms dominant and emerging instead of new and old systems because “new” implies that the old is bad, but it’s not. As the system is changing, we need to figure out which are the parts of the dominant system we are going to keep because not everything is terrible in the current system, and there’s a lot of good things in there. And that’s what the hospicing and decomposing is about. 

More than half of people went to bridge building, which really says something about how people are registering change in the system. 

SIRC: What else is important to keep in mind when using this model to think through change in the sport system? 

I think for me what keeps coming up is thinking through that decomposition piece. There’s a lot of good things in this current system. We need to take a hard look at what actually needs to change. For me, it’s the human element. That’s my biggest piece, how are we treating our people within this system? And how can we keep them? It bothers me that I’ve come across a fair number of people who have just left the system altogether and gone elsewhere. That person had a huge set of skills and had a huge history of the sports sector. How come we couldn’t keep them? How come we couldn’t shift them into a different role?  

So when we think of the dominant system, we can’t just think of the people that are in it as the resistance. We need to find a way to address that resistance and share where that new system is actually moving, what it believes in, and how they are a valuable part of that emerging system, that they do have a role to play. 

Questions for sport orgs and individuals to consider: 

Highlights

In Canada, youth sport is often coupled with incidences of poor parent or guardian behaviour. News reports of parent or guardian arrests and verbal as well as physical altercations around their children’s youth sporting events are, unfortunately, common (Bell, 2020; Crosier, 2022; Kaufmann et coll., 2019). Further, for many young athletes, dealing with pressuring, loud, and aggressive parents or guardians (both their own and others) can be embarrassing, stressful and may lead them to consider quitting sport at an early age (Cumming & Ewing, 2002; Smoll et coll., 2011). 

Likewise, many youth sport coaches and the parents and guardians they work with experience a variety of conflicts, struggle to effectively communicate with one another, and often fail to establish common goals (Erdal, 2018; Horne et coll. 2022). Youth sport referees also describe experiencing negative interactions with parents and guardians. Some officials cite parent and guardian behaviour to be one of the leading causes of referee attrition, due to concerns around safety and abuse (Ackery et coll., 2012; Warner et coll., 2013). 

While negative parent or guardian behaviours can adversely impact athlete experiences, displays of positive parental behaviour can lead to positive athlete outcomes. For example, researchers found that parents’ and guardians’ supportive behaviours during sport practices and competitions were predictive of their children’s reported levels of enjoyment and motivation (Sánchez-Miguel et coll., 2013). Additionally, when parents and guardians provide their children with appropriate praise and encouragement, young athletes appear to want parents involved in their sporting activities and are more likely to seek out parental feedback and support (Strand et coll. 2022). 

Armed with the knowledge that sport parents and guardians have the power to influence how their children’s youth sport experiences play out, questioning why these individuals might act in harmful ways is important. The competitive context which comes part and parcel with sport participation plays a large role in facilitating some of these intensified parental behaviours. However, it is also important to examine the totality of the current youth sport landscape to consider what other conditions could be exacerbating these issues. 

Father and child playing soccer in the park.This article focuses on how sport parent behaviour could be changed to improve the youth sport environment. As a researcher currently exploring why negative parent behaviours arise within youth sport, I will attempt to outline some factors and conditions that may be contributing to these events. Following this, I will provide recommendations and suggestions for youth sport practitioners, parents, and guardians in hopes of creating actionable change and an improved youth sport experience for all children and adults involved.

Stressors behind the sport parent experience 

When looking at previous research exploring why parents and guardians may be behaving in negative ways during their children’s sporting activities, 2 main issues are often discussed: the phenomenon of parents or guardians “living vicariously” through their children and the rise of youth sport professionalization.  

The tendency for parents and guardians to “live” sport engagement vicariously through their children might be better described as a parent’s desire for their child to achieve milestones or levels of success that they could not achieve themselves (Knight et coll., 2016). Examples could include receiving a sport-related scholarship or playing sport at the professional level. Further tied to these parental desires is the amount of social capital often associated with a young athlete’s success within sport. Children are very much able to influence the social lives and status of their parents and families as a whole, particularly through achievement-oriented activities such as youth sport (Brown, 2020). This can be seen in the stories of young athlete phenoms or prodigies whose parents are often held in high regard or even granted a level of celebrity within their communities and beyond (Sandstrom, 2022; Williams & Cotton, 2019). Recent examples of this are the portrayal and glorification of tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams’ father in the Oscar nominated film King Richard (Stinson, 2021) and the focus on the parents of Canadian World Junior hockey phenom Connor Bedard (Masters, 2022). In either case, when considering the benefits available to parents should their young athletes become successful within youth sport, it is important to acknowledge that incentives outside of their child’s development, growth, and sport enjoyment could play a role in affecting parent behaviours. 

The second systemic issue many young athletes and their families face is the rise of youth sport professionalization. The professionalization of a youth sport program occurs when program goals appear to align more closely with those seemingly more appropriate in a professional or adult sport context rather than in one targeted at children or teenagers (Erdal, 2018). For example, if a youth hockey program requires families to travel on team buses to away games, requires a strenuous off-ice training plan, and focuses on the teaching and implementation of advanced systems of play over individual development and fun, it could be considered more professionalized than recreational.  

While it might be assumed that children and their families can obtain a variety of benefits through their participation in these intensified settings, perhaps the most critical issue associated with youth sport professionalization is the financial cost. For many decades in Canada, the rising price tag of youth sport programming has increasingly acted as a deterrent in barring youth, particularly those from marginalized communities and individuals of low socioeconomic status, from becoming involved in sport or remaining involved in sport over multiple seasons. Overall, the gradual elimination of community sports programs (such as after-school recreational programming) in favour of more formalized, high-performance leagues has had the effect of reducing access to sport programming for many young people (Grueau, 2016).  

With the average registration cost of competitive youth sport programming sitting at approximately $774.00 per season and non-competitive programming at $320.00 in a typical mid-sized Canadian city, it can be assumed that most youth sport program participants are individuals from families of mid-to-high socioeconomic status with enough leisure time to be involved (Robertson et coll., 2019).  

Even for mid-to-high socioeconomic status parents and guardians, the pressure to continue to fund their children’s sport can be intense. Reports of parents opening additional lines of credit to pay for the equipment, league fees, and extra training opportunities required for their children to continue playing at a high level of sport are increasing (Adams & Johnson, 2018). Further, the social competition and comparison between sport families that these environments create is also problematic. During a recent study that I conducted, hockey parents described their family’s participation in the sport as more tied to ideas and notions around how they should appear as “good Canadians” and good community members rather than the outcomes related to their children’s program content or program quality (Murata & Côté, 2022).

Improving youth sport for young athletes and their families 

It is clear that parents often face a variety of personal challenges in relation to their children’s sport participation. When considering the financial commitments and social environments that parents and guardians must navigate within youth sport, their displays of frustration and other negative behaviours may be slightly easier to understand. As such, the pressure associated with participation as well as the financial cost to play sports must be addressed.  

Since the majority of youth sport programming appears to be more competitive than recreational in nature, the mandating and funding of more casual offerings (those that involve no travel, no sport-specific training, and fewer sessions per week) could be a way to even out the playing field for a greater number of families. The costs associated with facility usage are often prohibitive for these types of programs however, therefore governmental or sport governance support would be required.   

Culture change around the status associated with high intensity sport programming is also needed across Canadian youth sport. The current pressures felt by parents, guardians, and their children would perhaps be alleviated should participation become more centred on growth, recreation, and fun rather than metrics of achievement. Lowering the financial cost of sport would also do wonders to make participation appear to be less of a status symbol for those families involved. A sporting culture that discourages glorifying participation in high-performance sport programming early in an athlete’s life may act as a reasonable step in creating more equitable and positive sporting environments. 

In line with large-scale culture change, youth sport practitioners and researchers have begun to speculate on how negative parent behaviours could be mitigated at the administrative level (Gould, 2019; Ross et coll., 2015; Wiersma & Sherman, 2005). For example, previous research suggests that administrators should: 

Even when sport administrators follow these suggestions, parents still have a responsibility to both be aware of and in control of their own behaviour as key members of the youth sport system. Influential research by Knight et coll. (2010) and Tamminen et coll. (2017) suggests that parents can accomplish this by:  

Sport can be an important avenue for fostering enjoyable experiences, teaching life skills, and promoting positive physical and mental health habits for child and adolescent athletes. As such, it is important that all adults involved in facilitating and providing sport programming to these populations aim to create environments that will allow participants to develop, thrive, and remain involved over a long period of time.  

Given that parents play a critical role in supporting their children both within as well as outside of sport, it is important to ensure that these individuals are both equipped with the necessary skills and provided with an environment which will allow them to succeed. With the necessary knowledge and tools, parents and guardians can work towards fostering positive sport experiences for their children, themselves and everyone involved in youth sport. 

Highlights:

Aisulu Abdykadyrova remembers standing at a bus stop in Edmonton, Alberta on a cold winter night, the wind chill making it feel like -30 degrees Celsius. Her daughter, who had just finished practice at the Edmonton Rhythmic Gymnastics Club, was so cold she started to cry. It would be another 2 buses and 2 hours before they arrived home.

Abdykadyrova came to Canada from Kyrgyzstan to complete her PhD at the University of Alberta. She arrived in Edmonton with her husband and 2 kids, then aged 8 and 10, in 2014. With Abdykadyrova enrolled in a full-time graduate program and her husband working in construction, the family often found it difficult to make ends meet.

“The training fees were around $600 per month… That’s why I began to work while I was still in grad school,” says Abdykadyrova, referring to the cost of her daughter’s involvement in rhythmic gymnastics after she reached the national level. “It’s been so difficult. Nobody gave us a discount,” she adds.

Affording training fees and long trips on public transit are just a few of the many challenges that Abdykadyrova faced when trying to involve her children in organized sport. Sport can help to promote physical and mental health, build social connections and support integration into Canadian communities (for example, learning English or French) among newcomers to Canada. But research shows that newcomers, including recent immigrants and refugees, face unique barriers to sport participation. The cost of registration fees and equipment, transportation to and from sport facilities, access to information about sport programs, and experiences of racism and discrimination keep many newcomers out of sport, despite all it has to offer.

Why sport matters

Gololcha Boru knows these barriers all too well. Boru’s family, originally from Ethiopia, came to Canada as refugees when he was a young child. They settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where Boru was introduced to sport through school. His early experiences in the sport system weren’t entirely positive, so he didn’t stick with it for long.

“A lot of it came from, you know, you don’t have money to register, then sometimes coaches bring that up in a team setting, so everyone knows you don’t have money to play,” he explains. “And then there’s also instances of microaggressions. If you talk up, you’re seen as you lack discipline. A white player talks up, they’re seen as having leadership skills.”

Boru returned to sport in his early 20s when he began coaching the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba’s (IRCOM) youth soccer team. It was as a coach that he realized the positive impact that involvement in sport could have on newcomer youth.

“I think sport itself is a tool or a mechanism that can be used to improve one’s life, not only to be physically active for life, but also… to learn important life lessons. So, you know, the importance of hard work, the importance of persistence, the importance of teamwork,” he says.

He sees sport as an avenue to develop newcomer youth into leaders who give back to their communities, but only if the sport environment is intentionally designed to foster positive experiences and development. Such was the goal of his work with IRCOM: “We tried to create environments where young people would feel safe and have that sense of pride and empowerment to not only participate in sport, but also take active roles in coaching, officiating and so forth.”

Now Boru works in the City of Winnipeg’s Community Services Division, where he played a key role in writing and implementing the city’s Newcomer Welcome and Inclusion Policy. He is also one of the leaders of Immigration Partnership Winnipeg’s Anti-Racism in Sport campaign.

Advocating for newcomers in sport

Like Boru, Abdykadyrova has become a fierce champion for newcomer sport participation in her local community. It all started when she enrolled her daughter in rhythmic gymnastics, a popular sport in Kyrgyzstan, where her family is from. Abdykadyrova knew that the cost of the sport prevented other newcomer families from getting involved, and she wanted to change that.

“I said to our head coach, we can create a free program for newcomers, and everyone was telling [me] ‘It’s not possible,’” she says. “I said, ‘It’s possible.’”

Abdykadyrova held volunteer positions as the Vice President and then President of her daughter’s rhythmic gymnastics club from 2015 to 2020. During this time, she fundraised and applied for grants until the club had enough to launch free summer camps and a recreational rhythmic gymnastics program for newcomer girls. Around 100 girls participate in the free programs each year. The club hired Abdykadyrova as its program director in 2020.

She’s also a staunch supporter of her son’s swim club, the Race-Pace Swim Club, an Edmonton-based organization serving the Ukrainian community, including newcomers to Canada. The club was denied Swim Alberta affiliation in 2019 because it’s in an area that is already well serviced by existing clubs. This meant that members of the Race-Pace Swim Club couldn’t compete in sanctioned competitions. While Swim Alberta offered to help transfer swimmers to existing clubs, these clubs did not offer the cultural community and reduced barriers that Race-Pace provides, says Abdykadyrova.

“What is the difference of this club from other clubs? It has a cultural component,” she explains. “And our club and board members and the coaching staff [have created a program that] helps newcomers to integrate into Canadian society through the swimming program.”

Abdykadyrova and other club supporters continued to advocate for the club. Race-Pace swimmers were able to compete in sanctioned competitions for the first time in December 2022.

Outside of roles with her children’s sport clubs, Abdykadyrova works as a project coordinator at Action for Healthy Communities, a settlement organization that provides capacity-building services for newcomers, including in sport. She coordinates the PASS (Participating in Arts, Sports, and Society) Program, which offers youth after-school sport programs, “try-it” introductory sport events, sport-focused community information sessions, a forum to share best practices for inclusive sport programs, and research focused on the barriers to sport participation among racialized newcomer youth. She also sits on the Edmonton Sport Council’s board of directors.

The Winnipeg Newcomer Sport Academy

Child with baseball bat at Winnipeg Newcomer Sport Academy
Photo: Winnipeg Newcomer Sport Academy

Back in Winnipeg, 16-year-old Ali Aljoumah has experienced firsthand the benefits of a sport program designed for and with newcomers. Aljoumah was born in Syria and moved to Canada in 2019. At the time, he didn’t speak English. The language barrier made it challenging for him to participate in organized activities such as sport. That changed when he was introduced to the Winnipeg Newcomer Sport Academy (WNSA).

WNSA was founded in 2016 to provide newcomer children and youth in Winnipeg, Manitoba with affordable quality multi-sport programs. Not only does WNSA aim to be both affordable and accessible for newcomer families, but it also strives to provide quality multi-sport programming that is developmentally and culturally appropriate for newcomer children and youth.

“One of the benefits [of the WNSA] is being able to do all of these different sports, literally for free, like, transportation is there for all of the families, food is included, all of that. It’s really fun being at the program playing all of these different sports, for nothing in return,” says Aljoumah.

With an explicit focus on improving participants’ growth and development both in sport and in their broader communities, WNSA seeks to promote fitness and sport skills, improve health and wellbeing, and provide opportunities for civic engagement and leadership. For example, WNSA provides older youth with opportunities for leadership development through coaching and officiating, including assistance to obtain credentials to help with future employment. When Aljoumah turned 13, he entered the leadership program and now works as a WNSA coach.

“I love coaching, you know, I love everything about it,” he says. “I love helping the kids getting around, learning about new kids, where they’re from, what they like, what they don’t like. I also love helping especially the WNSA because I was once just like one of the kids there.”

Through sport, WNSA introduces newcomer families to Canadian culture in a safe environment. It’s motto, “resettlement, integration, inclusion,” speaks to the vital role that sport can play in the settlement process. “You’re in a whole new culture. You don’t know what’s happening around you,” explains Aljoumah. But trying new sports (for example, learning to skate) helped him to feel more at home.

Considering all the success that the program has had in Winnipeg, there are 2 things that keep WNSA founder and volunteer Executive Director, Carolyn Trono, up at night: The quality of sport programming that newcomers get across the country, and how to make the Canadian sport system more welcoming.

Trono believes that designing welcoming, inclusive sport spaces for newcomers needs to “start from when they leave the house.”  Everything from cost, language and transportation to the relationships that participants build with peers and leaders in the program need to be considered, she says.

Trono also emphasizes that pathways into and through sport might look different for newcomers. For example, trauma-informed and culture-specific programs may play an important role in introducing recent immigrants and refugees to sport in Canada, but there needs to be pathways to “bridge the gap” into mainstream programs, particularly for those who have the motivation and skill to pursue competitive sport. That means that those running mainstream sport programs need to be welcoming and willing to learn about other cultures, says Trono.

With funding from the Canadian Department of Heritage, Trono is a part of a team developing evidence-informed workshops that teach sport leaders and organizations how to create welcoming environments for newcomers in sport. 

WinSport Welcomes Newcomers Initiative

children on spin bikes at Winnipeg Newcomer Sport Academy
Photo: Winnipeg Newcomer Sport Academy

Another program that works to reduce barriers to sport participation for newcomers is the WinSport Welcomes Newcomers Initiative (WWNI). WinSport owns and operates Canada Olympic Park in Calgary, Aberta, one of the key legacy facilities from the 1988 Winter Olympics. It provides programs and facilities that help people of all ages discover, develop and excel at sport. The WWNI was co-founded by Simon Barrick, a then-doctoral student at the University of Calgary, in 2017. Barrick partnered with WinSport, the Centre for Newcomers, and the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association to design the WWNI, an introduction to sport program for new Canadians in Calgary, as part of his doctoral research.

“We designed this program, and my dissertation was really about exploring the lived experiences of the newcomers in these programs, and providing kind of a critical examination of how the program was set up, how it operates and some of the outcomes and some of the barriers that still persisted despite the efforts specifically focusing on introducing newcomers to sport,” explains Barrick.

Barrick, who is now an Assistant Professor at Cape Breton University, is passionate about transforming Canadian sport, physical activity, and leisure to be welcoming to all Canadians, particularly marginalized and underrepresented communities. Through his work with WinSport, Barrick explored innovative ways to reduce barriers and foster inclusion for newcomers in sport.

For example, complex registration systems that require knowledge of the language, technology, and the registration platform, as well as access to the technology or the internet to use the system, can pose a significant barrier to program entry. As part of the WWNI, Barrick and his partners tried different ways to make registration easier, from having settlement services counsellors work directly with families to register them for programs to sending a guest services team from WinSport to the settlement service offices to walk participants through the process.

“I think the lesson there is looking at kind of a step-by-step process to make it a really positive experience [for newcomers],” he says.

Learnings around program registration extended to other challenges for participants. For instance, while WinSport waived the cost of equipment rentals and partnering organizations held a winter clothing drive to make clothing freely available, many participants required education about what type of clothing is appropriate (for winter sports in particular) or how to properly fit the equipment. So, the registration process evolved again. Newcomer families could go to the settlement services offices on targeted days and go from room to room to access each thing they would need, from program information and registration to clothing and equipment, including the education they need to use it.

According to Jennifer Konopaki, WinSport’s Vice President of Sport, understanding the needs of newcomers and where they are at in the settlement process is critical:

“What [new Canadians] go through in the first month to the first 6 months to the next year to 5 years looks very different. And their requirements and needs along that process or journey are very different. And so, as a facility operator or programmer, you need to know where you’re entering their journey. And then your services and the design of what you offer should be a reflection of where they’re at in their journey to become a new Canadian.”

More than 600 newcomers have participated in the WWNI since it was established in 2017, and the program has continued to evolve to meet the needs of newcomers in Calgary and surrounding areas during that time. For example, WinSport has hosted an annual Family Fun Day for newcomers, made possible through sponsorship from Capital Power, for the past 2 years.

“The families loved it. It removed some of the challenges with the longer commitment programs that we originally started with. Because the longer commitment programs, you have to participate, you have to show up, you have to be consistent, and that was a challenging, challenging element with some newcomer [families],” says Konopaki.

WinSport is currently engaged in a new research partnership with Matthew Kwan, an Associate Professor in the Department of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University. The project will explore physical literacy programming for newcomer youth.

Konopaki sees great value in engaging researchers to support program design and delivery: “It’s been really great. Like, Simon [Barrick] was instrumental in helping us get started. And Matt [Kwan] has been instrumental in helping us become better operators and programmers.”

Tips for creating welcoming, equitable spaces for newcomers in sport

  1. Co-design programs with newcomers through an intersectional lens

When possible, sport programs for newcomers should be co-designed with newcomers and agencies or service organizations that advocate for them. This is an important step to ensure that relevant barriers are addressed, and that the program as a whole is meeting the target group’s needs. It’s also important for building trust between the organization offering the program and the newcomer community. 

“When you’re involving anybody, any group that has historically been excluded, or at least doesn’t have a presence in your sport space… I would say the biggest thing is you also need to directly involve [them],” says Barrick. “So, working with those entities, right from day one, to identify what individuals and the communities as a whole need, and start building that trust.”

As a newcomer herself, Abdykadyrova emphasized the importance of understanding the situation that newcomers are in and being compassionate. This requires speaking to newcomers about their experiences: “You know how it is cold in Edmonton [in winter], minus 20 but it feels minus 30. And we stood in the bus stop waiting for the bus. And my daughter was crying because she was so cold. Nobody from the board or the local parents don’t experience this, right?”

Boru adds that designing programs through an intersectional lens is important for understanding the overlapping influence of diverse identities and barriers on sport participation.

  1. Collaborate and share resources and capacity with relevant partners

According to Konopaki, the success of the WWNI is due in large part to partnerships. “What’s critical is the partnership between the facility operator and programmer, the agency who has the relationship and is currently servicing newcomers, and researchers. When those three groups of experts come together and co-design, it’s beautiful,” she says.

Barrick, the researcher who co-founded the WWNI, highlighted how meaningful collaborations with relevant partners can reduce the burden on any one organization through the sharing of resources and capacity (such as cost, expertise, and access to equipment or facilities). “When you’re working with different organizations, there’s a certain cost-sharing that comes about and especially in terms of in-kind support,” he explains. “So, for example, when we were working with settlement service organizations, they would offer to do translation services, and different things like that.”

  1. Find innovative ways to reduce barriers to newcomer’s participation

A key issue with inclusion in sport is whether its performative or structural, says Barrick. “A performative piece of inclusion that could be problematic is if a sport club or organization releases a statement saying, ‘We welcome everybody, please come out.’ … Yes, that’s nice to hear. And it can, in some cases, get people in the door. But if the organization hasn’t thought about innovative strategies to support those folks once they’re in the space, then it’s performative. And that is a problem.”

To be truly inclusive, organizations need to address barriers to participation, including cost, equipment, transportation, access to information, and religious or cultural considerations, whenever possible. For example, Aljoumah underscored the need to get buy-in from parents when promoting a sport program for newcomer children and youth: “If the parents get out there and see what we’re doing, I think it will be much better for the parents to know what we’re doing [and] to appreciate what we’re doing.”

  1. Think beyond the barriers to the quality of programming that you are offering

Trono, founder and volunteer Executive Director of WNSA, highlights the quality of sport programming as a key issue for newcomers. Reducing barriers is how you get participants in the door, but welcoming and inclusive spaces are needed to foster growth, development and life skills, she says.

Aljoumah, a former participant and current program leader at WNSA, emphasizes the importance of fostering positive relationships between program leaders and participants. He says its important that the relationships are about more than sport. “We talk not just about score, but we talk about, like, how their day is, how things are going, other feelings. So, it’s about more than just them coming in. They’re not just playing sports and leaving, but actually having good, good connections between the kids and the leaders.”

One last piece of advice: “You don’t have to make it too strict. They’re there to have fun,” he adds.

Recommended programs and resources

Photos provided by: Photo: Winnipeg Newcomer Sport Academy