Golf Canada says athletes are free to speak on social justice or Safe Sport issues
TORONTO — Golf Canada says its athletes are free to discuss political activism, self-expression on social justice points and Protected Sport.
The nationwide governing physique for golf issued the assertion on Thursday, a day after Canada’s sport minister Pascale St-Onge mentioned non-disclosure agreements contradict the “very precept of protected sports activities.”
St-Onge was responding to issues from bobsled and skeleton athletes a few non-disparagement clause of their athlete settlement, which should be signed as a way to compete and obtain Sport Canada funding.
Golf Canada’s mentioned its non-disparagement clause is meant to “discourage public criticism of Golf Canada and its companions.”
Nonetheless, the nationwide sports activities group mentioned all of its athletes can communicate out on problems with harassment, bullying, or abuse or interact with Protected Sport’s reporting course of if mandatory.
“It has by no means been Golf Canada’s intent to preclude athletes from talking out about points associated to Protected Sport,” Kevin Blue, Golf Canada’s chief sport officer, mentioned in an announcement. “Throughout on-boarding, athletes are particularly reminded about Golf Canada’s dedication to Protected Sport and educated about how one can report any Protected Sport issues to our third-party reporting service.”
Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton (BCS) and Boxing Canada are amongst nationwide sport organizations which have NDAs of their agreements. The BCS clause prohibits athletes divulging or conveying something that “would lead to a battle of curiosity with BCS and/or in any means hurt, lead to, and/or trigger detriment to BCS in any means in any way.” It is in impact for six months following the termination or completion of an athlete’s contract.
BCS declined to touch upon Wednesday. Boxing Canada did not reply to a request for remark.
The clause has been within the BCS contract for a minimum of 4 years, however the athletes’ worry of reprisal has grown since greater than 60 present and former athletes publicly referred to as for the resignation of president Sarah Storey and high-performance director Chris LeBihan on March 7, amid what they mentioned was a poisonous surroundings of their sports activities.
AthletesCAN, the affiliation representing Canadian athletes, wrote a template for athlete agreements in 2019 in partnership with Sport Canada, and a working group that included athletes, attorneys and several other nationwide sport organizations. It didn’t include a non-disparagement clause.
The group’s objective was to have 100 per cent of nationwide sport organizations (NSOs) undertake the template by 2022. The template was adopted by quite a few federations together with Water Polo Canada, Athletics Canada, Gymnastics Canada and Canada Snowboard. Canada Basketball can be amongst sports activities with no NDA.
In an announcement, AthletesCAN mentioned it strongly advises NSOs to implement their template.
— With information from Lori Ewing.
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed June 9, 2022.
John Chidley-Hill, The Canadian Press
