‘We don’t change culture with a poster’: Former NHLer says new commission a starting point to tackle abuse

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For former NHL player Sheldon Kennedy, the federal government’s commission to investigate systemic abuse in Canadian sports is a step forward he’s never seen taken before.

“We’ve been in this space for a long time now, and and I think it’s the first time at that level that we’ve heard an acknowledgement of the magnitude of the issue within sport,” he told The Current’s Matt Galloway.

On Dec. 11, the federal government launched a three-person commission to look at systemic abuse and human rights violations in Canadian sports.

The work of the planned three-person commission will be “trauma-informed, victim-centred [and] forward looking,” Sport Minister Carla Qualtrough told CBC News’ Ashley Burke. It will be based on the “understanding that a group of vulnerable people have been harmed. The system didn’t protect them and we want to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” she added.

The federal government has been under pressure for months to call a public inquiry into abuse in sports.

Several athletes, advocates and a parliamentary committee have all demanded an inquiry to address what they call a pattern of normalizing abuse, covering up misconduct and failing to hold perpetrators accountable.

Qualtrough says she’s spent more than three months “obsessively” considering a process to address this “systemic problem.”

“We’re dealing with a complex array of abuse, harassment, discrimination [and] normalized behaviour that is very inappropriate,” she said. 

Kennedy, who’s one of the victims of convicted sex offender and former junior hockey coach Graham James, said this announcement is a starting point that will “allow us to think differently within the system of how we move forward.”

Creating a new culture — with intent

Kennedy made his NHL debut during the 1989-90 season, and played his last NHL game in 1997. He said cases of abuse like the kind he went through were seen as “isolated incidents” during his playing days — and the way they were dealt with was to just make them disappear.

But Kennedy says this isn’t…