When Dr. Guylaine Demers talks about gender equality in Canadian sport, she does so with the precision of an academic, the passion of an advocate, and the realism of someone who has spent more than 3 decades inside the system.
Demers, a professor at Laval University and one of Canada’s leading researchers on equity in sport, has been investigating participation and gender parity for decades. Her work has informed national policy, inspired grassroots movements across the country, and she’s a member of the International Olympic Committee’s Working Group on Inclusion. Yet, it all started with a simple, unmet desire: to play hockey like her brothers.
Growing up in rural Quebec in the 1970s, that option didn’t exist for girls. While her parents supported her interest by buying her hockey pads for Christmas, the system didn’t. She remembers watching boys play football while girls were relegated to gymnastics. The message was loud and clear: some activities weren’t for her.
“There’s not much room for error,” she says, “especially for women.” Whether it’s athletes, coaches, or officials, women in sport, particularly those from historically marginalized groups, are navigating an uphill climb, often with fewer resources and higher stakes.
In Canada, the federal government has committed $30 million since 2018 to achieve gender equity in sport by 2035. It’s a historic investment. But for Demers, it’s nowhere near enough.
“It sounds like a big number,” she says, “but when you divide that across all the provinces, all the sports, all the girls, it’s about $2 per woman or girl. That’s a drop in the ocean.”
A utopian deadline
To be clear, Demers is not cynical. She is pragmatic. She applauds the attention and the safety-focused components of recent funding. But she challenges the premise that the current approach, of modest sums stretched thin across a massive country, will bring about real change by 2035.
“Forget about equality in 20 or 35 years, it’s utopian” she says. “Never in a million years. They would have had to invest $30 million a year over the last few years.”
The problem isn’t just the amount of money; it’s how it’s being spent. Rather than sustained, strategic investment in infrastructure and programming, the money is often fragmented across one-off initiatives with limited longevity or reach.
“If we want systemic change, funding can’t be a one-off deal,” Demers argues. “Can you put in $10 million a year for the next 15 years and really keep an eye on it? We can’t invest everywhere. We need to make choices.”
Other countries have. She points to Australia, where investments are focused not only on elite sport but also on mass participation ensuring that all young people, not just the Olympians-in-waiting, have the chance to play. That kind of decision, Demers says, requires political courage.
“But politicians don’t dare do it. Because it’s not popular.”
Beyond the medal podium
The conversation about equality in sport often gets hijacked by Olympic narratives, who gets funded, who wins medals, which sports are prioritized. But for Demers, the real crisis is far from the podium. It’s at the grassroots, in local rinks, fields, and community centres across the country.
“All little girls in Canada should be able to play sports,” she says, “but right now, that’s a dream.”
The benefits of sport like improved physical and mental health, social cohesion, life skills are well-documented. And yet, barriers remain. Cost is one. So is access. For girls from racialized backgrounds, rural areas, or those living with disabilities, the barriers multiply.
Even when programs exist, they’re often not designed with inclusion in mind.
“It’s not even welcoming for these girls,” Demers notes. “Right from the start, there’s no access.”
Mapping the gaps
Part of the solution, she believes, lies in data. Her team in Quebec is working on a pilot project to map gender inequalities in sport across the province. Using interactive tools, they’re tracking participation in 4 of the largest sports, identifying where the gaps are, not just between boys and girls, but between regions and communities.
“We can see on the map where the sport is played, who plays it, and the number of boys and girls,” she explains. “If you look at Quebec City, and you see that only 10 girls are participating while 60% of the population is female, that’s a red flag.”
The project also overlays infrastructure data, where facilities exist, who uses them, and whether they’re accessible to girls. In many cases, girls must travel far outside their community to access higher levels of competition, something boys often don’t have to do.
“That’s another inequality we measure,” Demers says. “Because when access requires a 90-minute drive, it’s no longer accessible.”
Eventually, Demers hopes to expand the project nationally, across more sports, and even into public-facing tools. “If I just moved to a new city and want to know what’s available for my daughter, I should be able to see where the clubs are, what they offer, and who’s coaching. That’s the dream.”
Coaching: Still a man’s world
Of course, access isn’t just about athletes. Women are also vastly underrepresented in coaching, officiating, and leadership roles in sport. Despite decades of progress for female athletes, the number of women in coaching roles has stagnated at around 25% for 35 years.
“It’s almost like the mystery of caramel,” she jokes, something sweet and sticky that remains unsolved. “There’s a systemic resistance to women in leadership positions in sport. I’m not saying men are trying to exclude women, but the system wasn’t designed with women in mind.”
Demers has spent years trying to change that.
“We’ve done great work mentoring women, creating communities of practice, supporting them,” she says. “But the system itself is still broken.”
The excuses, she says, are predictable: “We tried to find women, but couldn’t.”
That refrain, she argues, is no longer acceptable. And it’s why she’s now working on creating databases—just like political parties do—to connect sports organizations with qualified women interested in coaching and leadership roles.
“There are plenty of women who are interested,” she says. “You just don’t know, and you don’t ask them.”
The solution is structural. Make it easy for organizations to find, train, and support women. Then, hold them accountable.
“If we put effort into it, we find women. When we don’t, we find excuses.”
The cost of inaction
The stakes are high. Demers points out that investing in community sport pays dividends far beyond the field.
“The more sport you do, the less you go to the hospital,” she says. “It’s been proven. For every dollar invested in sport, you save $20 in health care.”
But these are long-term gains in a political system driven by short-term optics. Cutting ribbons on new arenas or announcing Olympic funding generates headlines. Quietly fixing infrastructure, lowering registration costs, or funding community programs does not.
That tension, between what’s popular and what’s effective, leaves girls, especially those already on the margins, out of the game.
The work ahead
At 35 years into her career, Demers has no plans to slow down. Instead, she’s focused on scaling the pilot mapping project, building coaching databases, and reimagining how sport is structured in Canada. She dreams of getting a research grant to test entirely new models of sport delivery like systems that prioritize inclusion, not just competition.
“Imagine a system,” she says, “where everyone can participate, regardless of their ability.”
That’s where real transformation begins, not in a single headline-grabbing investment, but in sustained, strategic, and inclusive reform. One map, one coach, one girl at a time.
For more about Dr. Guylaine Demer’s work and research: