Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, it's Steve Vindig at Sport Law.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Leave me a message. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
[00:00:06] Speaker C: Hey, Steve, it's Dina. You aren't going to believe what just came across my desk. We need to chat. Give me a call.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Welcome to the latest episode of Sportopia. We're so excited to share our knowledge and have conversations about healthy human sport today. I'm excited to share that a couple of team members from Sport Law will be joining us today. Will Russell and Greg Gillooli to chat with Dina and I about the future of Sport Commission. But before we get there, Dina, as always, what is coming across your desk?
[00:01:05] Speaker C: Well, this week I'm actually excited because we're launching a new series, a new leadership series webinar on webinar format. And we're connecting to a reimagined sports system. So it's reimagining leadership, reimagining the structure that's needed, reimagining different management styles. So we created nine different topics that are all really relevant to sport leaders, from national down to community level. So if you're a sport leader who's curious about some of the trends in sport and some of the ways we might need to shift our leadership support, then come join us. We're really excited about that. What about you, Steve? What's coming across your desk?
[00:01:50] Speaker A: I know I've talked about this before, but I am excited. Tonight I have a meeting with two clients about amalgamation. It is my favorite new word from 2024, continuing into 2025. I just love Less is More. The resharing of resources, the sharing of finances, the reduction of expenses. I just think that's an important trend these days in the way sport is moving.
[00:02:17] Speaker C: Hey, Steve, I think before you jump to Greg, I think we did a session. We'll have to get Robin to find it. I think we had like the 7A's of a more modern sports system and in there was, you know, aspirations and alignment and everything else. So it'll be. Maybe we can link to that, that.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: Session, the importance of amalgamation.
Greg, welcome. And what's happening with you these days?
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Well, thanks for having me. And generally dealing with clients struggling with corporate governance and safe sport, it's all pervasive across the sporting world. The safe sport environment over the past several years. And as people are trying to tease out exactly what the concepts mean, conflicts are inevitably arising. And so managing a smooth path through competing interests and competing misunderstandings and competing understandings has proven to be more difficult than I think the people who implemented the systems thought it would be. So there's ongoing work in that. And then the corporate governance issues generally, anytime you've got an upset group within an organization, corporate governance is essential. And institutions find out very quickly that if they don't have proper corporate governance mechanisms in place, they're only creating bigger problems for them than they otherwise would have had.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: Maybe they need to amalgamate.
[00:03:43] Speaker C: Craig, it's so true. You cannot have safe sport without really good governance. Right. And if there is safety in sport, it's in spite of the system, not because of it. So thanks, Greg. Really looking forward to hearing your perspective this afternoon. What about you, Will? What's coming across your desk or how long do we have?
[00:04:03] Speaker D: A little bit of everything, I think, Greg, to that point it's always, you know, governance really doesn't matter until it does. Like it seems to be something that is a forgotten framework that we do need to turn to. It's invisible when it is done. Well, we don't really necessarily want to be referring to our bylaws weekly a little bit of everything these days. You know, I think we're still seeing the onboarding of the provincial territorial mechanisms. You know, they're all in various states of readiness or implementation.
A bit of a lull when it comes to some of the high performance or the national team pieces. So we're not seeing the appeals these days after the Olympics, but certainly not a dull moment to be found these days, which is good. Which is good. Trying to help people get some of the system structural issues squared away so we can start getting back to the focus of people on the field, people playing the sport.
[00:05:01] Speaker C: Well, isn't that the hope? So we're just delighted, Steve and I, to be welcoming both you, Will and Greg, to a really important conversation on the future of sport and specifically the commission that was established by the government of Canada. So the Commission on the Future of Sport in Canada has two mandates. One is to review the sport system and make recommendations on improving safe sport in Canada, including trauma informed approaches to support sport participants in disclosing maltreatment. And then secondly, I would say, as importantly, there's also a desire to improve the overall sports system, including ensuring good policy, reviewing our funding model, modernizing governance, ensuring system alignment, investing in a healthy culture and ensuring quality legal foundations, among so many other improvements. Now at Sport Law, we've been talking about a reimagined sport system for probably over a decade and internally, and maybe now more externally, we've been calling it Sport 2.0. All three of you have had the opportunity to share your views with the commission. And so maybe Steve, let's begin with you. What were your expectations and maybe just share. Tell us the story of how the conversation went. I'm not going to call it an interview or a testimonial. It was more or a test. You weren't really testifying. So how did it go?
[00:06:27] Speaker A: It went well, I have to say. When I was asked to participate, my initial reaction was that of kind of getting my back up and coming potentially coming into a bit of a hostile environment, unsure of the way in which they were going to question me and, and me on behalf of sport law.
So I was nervous. I was concerned and walking into the building and taking the elevator up the the 20 something floor, but getting into the room and meeting the individuals and understanding pretty quickly that they were there to learn and not to cross examine really created a I had a fun time. I really quite enjoyed it. What it was, was actually a lot of dean of what you and I and other guests talk about on the podcast is how do we want to improve sport? How do we think that can happen?
And I really felt that in the questioning and their ability to allow me just to vent or express what I my thoughts were having been involved in the System for over 20 years and of course having a few learnings along the way. So, so really I was sad when the time ran out at the end of it that we had just kind of hit the tip of the iceberg of what I really wanted to get into. And of course, you know, I like getting into the weeds and the details and how are we going to make this happen? So there was a lot of conversation about SafeSport. I'll probably let Greg and will address that a little bit more than my time with the commission. I like talking about governance and silos and how we don't work together and again, how we want people to come together and how we want to share resources and not recreate the wheel. And how do we do that in the current framework of funding, Provincial funding, territorial funding, federal funding, how does that work together and how do we minimize the number of board members that are required in a sports sector that is just depleting itself from the volunteer capacity. So I just love the conversation and getting into the nuances of how do we make that happen. Of course I didn't have all the answers. I wish I did. I, I wish I could talk about how provincial funding will cross pollinate with national funding and territorial funding and we'll Be able to get more bang for our buck. That that really was the motivation of what I wanted to the commission was how do we do things better and how do we get there? But of course I didn't have the political answer to a lot of those questions.
So overall for me it was about governance and amalgamation and breaking down silos and sharing resources and trying to find a methodology that would get us there in the near future.
[00:09:15] Speaker C: That's really helpful, Steve. And so you went in a little bit like nervous because sometimes, especially given the state of the current sports system right now, I think so many of us are walking on pins and needles. So it sounds like it was a really positive experience. Were there any assumptions that they held about the work that you were doing or sport law that you had to maybe bust some myths?
[00:09:39] Speaker A: I think it was. There was one question they were a little bit unsure the scope of our services and our client base. So that was something to which I explained has evolved over two decades where we would provide consulting services to anybody involved in sport. And probably over the last decade I would say that's morphed into representing the interest of a sport organization and not those of individuals. So that was something that required a bit of explanation and also our role in third party management. So independent third party management. And as all of you know on the call, a lot of what happens in sports starts here. And when the idea of an independent third party existed, we did provide that service. And over time, as new organizations or new businesses were formed to provide that service, we felt it was time to get out of it. And that happened years ago. And I don't think they were aware of that. I think they were completely unsure of the scope of our services. So there was some time spent on explaining that to them as well.
[00:10:39] Speaker C: Great. Well, I'm glad it was a positive experience for you. Maybe we'll bring Will into the conversations and then just an open invitation to all of us if there's a question that emerges. Let's just ensure it's a, like a free, freewheeling conversation. So what about you, you know, Will maybe take us to your overall impression and. And was it, you know, what kind of experience was it for you as you were answering questions from the commission?
[00:11:04] Speaker D: It was a really positive experience, I think similar to what Steve said. They're very curious about a lot of the issues facing sport. They didn't seem to have a lot of preconceived notions approaching their mandate from trying to figure out how to improve the system. You know, what are the Barriers, what are the structural issues that need to be addressed to move us forward and taking the long view on that rather than the issue of the day actually saying, what can our sports system be and what are the barriers or what are the challenges in moving it forward? And you know, we've had this conversation before.
A lot of the challenges facing sport, particularly on the governance side, is a pretty quintessential Canadian one where we have different areas of jurisdiction, we have national, we have provincial and territorial. And sometimes those lines shall not be crossed and will not be crossed. So it's always that piece of navigating those, you know, fundamental structures, the realities that we have in our country and how they're reflected in sport. But it was a really good conversation, getting down into the weeds of, you know, contract versus bylaw governance issues, but then also, you know, really looking at some of the big picture pieces of why sport and what it can be.
[00:12:21] Speaker C: Yeah, I find it's so fascinating. At the top of the conversation, before we hit record, you will, were commenting on, you know, I think we know we have everything we need to be able to move towards a more modern sport system. So what's getting in the way? And I think what we concluded is we're making a systems issue. We're downloading all that onto the shoulders of individuals, many of whom are transient. The vast majority of leadership and governance is based on people who are there just for a short time, not a long time. There might be a song about that.
I think that's part of what we're trying to name that. And I loved what you said. Will, if we had a magic wand and could imagine a new system today, how would we design a system that would be 21st century, 20, 25, you know, ready? I'm sure it wouldn't be the system that we find ourselves in.
[00:13:19] Speaker D: Oh, I, I agree. And we've done this analysis of some of the different sports and disciplines about how many boards they have, how many different funders they have. The responsibility and the administrative cost of maintaining that is huge. And we're always saying, what are the opportunities to say, here's what we need to do. We don't need to have everybody be the same within increasingly smaller jurisdiction. But it's a tough conversation and it takes a lot because anytime we're talking about those big picture pieces where organizations are, you know, limited in human and capital resources, it can take away from actually delivering the sport. So it's a challenge. It's a balancing act and it's a challenge. But, you know, the opportunity to have that conversation, the Commission was really valuable one.
[00:14:08] Speaker C: I'm really happy to hear that. And you've got me thinking as we turn towards Greg, this is really a conversation, a fundamental conversation around values and trust. And we can only move as fast as the speed of trust. I think Stephen Covey said that. So, you know, when trust is low, as the current system probably is, is in this lower period, we can only move as fast as the trust that we're extending to each other. So what about you, Greg? You've had, you know, some very public opinions about the state of sport and hard earned, and we're just delighted that you've joined Sport Law in our attempt to help modernize the Canadian sport system and the nature of the work that we do. So tell us a little bit more about your experience with the Commission.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: I had a fascinating morning with the commission, and I was overjoyed with the approach they took towards me because obviously they were familiar with my story, my relationship with Hockey Canada as a Graham James victim survivor.
They wanted to know specific details about my experience just to understand how the sporting world responded. And what I want to make clear, and what I always make clear whenever I talk about my specific experience is I dealt with an organization that no longer exists. And I experienced what I did decades ago and the world today. And Hockey Canada today is not the Hockey Canada that I dealt with. And so I want to make that abundantly clear when I reference my experience. And the Commission wanted to know the good and the bad. And my experience was both good and bad with Hockey Canada. And there's no pretending otherwise. The interesting thing is that the sporting landscape now in 2025 is such that there is an enhanced ability for sports organizations and institutions to do the right thing because of increased awareness. And public education has been fundamental to enabling organizations and institutions to respond better. Just a simple general societal awareness makes things better. And so I'm often asked, if I were given a magic wand, what would I change here or there? And the answer is interesting in theory, but absolutely impossible in reality, given that we can come up with all of the rules and all of the structures to make better solutions possible. But until the people filling the roles actually live and embrace what it is they're doing, change is impossible. And so change is unfortunately something that just inevitably takes time. Change is no faster than the broader societal change with respect to an issue itself. That doesn't mean everyone involved in sport shouldn't be doing the heavy lifting. And that's where we started to circle back to well, why are we here in the first place? What does sport mean? What should sport mean? And that, Dina, takes us absolutely back to issues of trust and values. Why are we here in the first place? Why do people participate in sport in Canada? What's the end goal? And the thing about being old, I'm in my 60s now. The thing about being old is I'm old enough to remember that. We've had these conversations before. When I was a lawyer starting out, the Dubin inquiry had just started. Ben Johnson at the 88 Olympics busted for doping, and the Canadian sport world was up in arms. What are we going to do? Charles Dubben, a former lawyer at Torres, the firm I was articling at, was a former judge or was a judge who was tasked with putting in place an inquiry to look into. How did this Ben Johnson scandal that embarrassed all Canadians come about? Well, first of all, did it embarrass all Canadians? Only if all Canadians tie their self worth to sport. And that led to a fundamental question, what are we doing here? The Dublin inquiry had two direct tracks and it reported an inordinate number of recommendations when it was through, it dealt with the Ben Johnson situation specifically, but it also took a look at what is sport, what should sport be? And all of the things we're Talking about in 2024, 2025 were things that were talked about during that inquiry back in 1989, 1990. And the recommendations came out focusing on what do we do with Ben Johnson and what do we do with sport.
The fundamental tragedy of the Dublin Inquiry over three decades ago is that people focused on the recommendations with respect to Ben Johnson. Ben Johnson has suffered enough. He should be allowed to potentially apply for reinstatement. The doctor should be sanctioned by the medical community. The sport leaders should absolutely be held to account. The coaches should be sanctioned. The poor athletes should be better cared for. We have to protect athletes.
And then they went that second step and said, we're overvaluing medals. This, this comes about because people's careers can be built through winning medals. And perhaps we're over emphasizing success. And sports bodies should be funded on the basis of their ability to enhance broad based participation and expand their sports into unserved areas with visible minorities, program more programs for women. All of the stuff we're talking about now was front and center back in 1991 when the report came out, and yet no one paid attention to it. And so here we are again dealing with all of these issues. And so I had a phenomenal day as we talked about this. And we revisited the creation of the participaction movement in Canada and that famous commercial that came out in 1973 comparing the health of the average 30 year old Canadian to the average 60 year old Swede and the notion that sport and funding should be devoted to increasing the health of our community, not to win gold medals. Same issues are front and center now.
[00:20:35] Speaker C: Yeah, it's interesting. They're not mutually exclusive propositions, but we hold them as binary constructs rather than mutually reinforcing polarities that yes, we want to win medals on the world stage and we want to ensure that the ways in which we go about winning those medals are not at the expense of the health and well being of the athletes and the coaches and support staff. So Greg, I'm so thrilled that you, you know, you referenced the Duben Inquiry. I think you and I have had several conversations about. It's the Gray book and you can see here it's dog eared because I ended up doing my journalism thesis on Ben Johnson and on the Dubin Inquiry and I'll never forget, I can't remember which page it was, but inside this book Dubin wrote, we don't have a doping issue. What we have is a moral crisis. And I think that those words, if we had heeded the advice of Dubin at the time to reimagine the Canadian sports system, we wouldn't be in the, I think the hot mess that we're in right now dealing with issues related to maltreatment and fractured governance and low levels of trust. I'm wondering, Will and Steve, what's your response to some of what Greg has shared and your own ideas?
[00:21:55] Speaker D: Well, I was just going to ask how do we avoid history repeating ourselves before maybe we get to the specifics because we had that, I think a pretty foundational and well received report that maybe sounds like didn't fulfill the promise of what it had offered. How do we avoid repeating that pattern?
[00:22:15] Speaker B: Don't you do that through incentives and figuring out in your system what gets rewarded and what doesn't? For example, if sports organizations are rewarded based upon the number of medals, that's wonderful and every organization should strive for excellence and win medals. But equally important, as set out in the Dublin Inquiry report, was expanded participation, ongoing retention of athletes, expanding your athlete pool and participant pool into previously unserved areas. And it's the fundamental understanding of the value system applied to the organization that is absolutely fundamental to what you're going to end up with. Because look, I stared pure evil in the eye. People who are potentially getting things wrong in the sporting world are not evil people. These are wonderful people, giving of their time and making their lives, wanting nothing more than for the people they deal with to succeed, for the community to get better, and for the country to be stronger for their efforts. Wonderful people. These are not bad, evil people. These are exactly the people you want in the positions. The problem is that incentives guide and direct behavior and output. That which gets measured gets done. And so it's essential in setting up the incentive model for an institution and an organization to ensure that you're measuring and incentivizing what it is you want to come out with, consistent with your values. And that's why, in my view, strategic reviews and organizational reviews are A essential and B, necessarily tied to value statements with the organization. And it sounds airy fairy. And people get, they, they, they sometimes see it as a waste of resources and a waste of time. When it comes to these things, corporate governance and mission statements and values, it's just meaningless paperwork. But it isn't. It's the soul of the institution and the organization, and it directly leads to what happens.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: I want to take that a step further, Greg. Like, I love what you just said and I want to add to that, and you mentioned people and we always sometimes say, well, we say it all the time, you may not have a governance problem, you may have a people problem. And when we look fundamentally at sport organizations, I would say 99.5% of them are not for profit. The intent of a not for profit is to promote its objectives. Most objectives are to promote basketball, to promote soccer, to promote hockey, whatever their sport is, and to have people. Very rarely do you see in the objectives or the purposes of a corporation to win provincial championships, to win medals. It's participation, it's competitiveness, it's learning lifelong skills. And then I do think those get forgotten. And the other thing I want to say is that sometimes what bothers me is that neighboring clubs, they're adversaries. And of course, we love rivalries in sport. That's a lot of fun and I appreciate that. But when you look at your objectives to promote sport and one club might be doing better in numbers, there's likely a reason why. And again, I keep going back to that amalgamation comment to saying it's strange that not for profits are competing with each other and not necessarily working together. So I, I mean, look, we make a, we do a lot of work in governance. Is it important? Yes, as we say all the time, and we've said it numerous times on this podcast, we don't like working in, getting a client from, you know, point A to point A. We want to see them grow. We want to see them move forward and be successful. And infighting may not always be that. That A to B solution we want to see. So people are important. Governance is important. It's all important. But I'd like to see more professionalization in sport. Less corporations, less boards, more alignment, having people with particular skill sets assume positions of strength.
Again, a bit of a joke, but truthfully, if we had a dollar for every time a volunteer board member said, had I known what I'd be dealing with as a volunteer, I never would have agreed. Well, we want people to know what they're getting into, and we want them to agree. And I think the system's not designed for that right now.
[00:26:48] Speaker D: In a lot of the conversations we go in, Greg and Steve, to your point, I'll ask what is your.
In your articles in Corporation, like, what is your purpose? What is your statement there? And I think a lot of folks stumble on that point, and it can be a challenge because we need to know why we're there. If you're there for high performance, that's okay, but we need to understand what we're there. If we're there for grassroots development, that's a key thing, but it's knowing what we're trying to do in our commitment to the community, whatever level we're at. Community Club, or nso, is an important piece.
[00:27:23] Speaker B: This is where it ties into safe sport. And this is where I circle back to my own personal experience.
The people involved in the amateur sport community in Winnipeg back in 1979 and 1980, they took their eye off the ball because they got caught up in the presence of a very successful hockey coach who was all of a sudden seemingly doing wonderful things within the local hockey community.
And when things seemed maybe kind of sort of a little off, what was important to the people, their values. They valued winning and kids moving on to the NHL over maybe taking a more critical look at how that was happening and who was facilitating that. And that speaks generally to a theme that I hammer home whenever I'm asked to speak to these issues. And, Steve, you're absolutely right.
Until society, until people, until the community truly live the values they say are important to them, nothing matters. Because you can have all of the good corporate governance in place, but if people aren't paying attention to it, aren't living it, bad things can happen.
[00:28:45] Speaker C: Yeah, you're speaking to kind of like the social construct of sport. Greg. And it reminds me of the arena, you know, when you had the, the Romans being thrown to the lions, basically, and the last, last person standing and the emperor putting thumbs up, meaning that they would spare his life, or thumbs down and off with his head. And, and I think that that speaks to modern day sport, that there's both the primal instinct to move together in clans against another clan, and we're going to do that through the art of sport and it's going to help keep the people distracted enough and amused enough so that people in power wouldn't have to go to war again because they knew how destructive war could be. And then on the other side of that coin is the beautiful aspirational promise of sport and what it can do for individuals and community and society to help us self actualize, right, and reach our full human potential. So I think it's in that space between the two coins where we have inherited, as the three of you are speaking, to a system that was designed in the 70s and at the time was considered to be a leading practice, right. Leading up to the Olympic Games, Canada was held as a hallmark of how a more modern system could self organize. And what I think the future sport commission could do is help us take an inventory, a look at that, just like the Dubin inquiry did. And as I look at the title, we might say that the commission of inquiry into the use of drugs and banned practices intended to increase athletic performance could actually be rewritten to the commission into the future of healthy human sport. Because so much of what Dubin wrote in here is actually a roadmap towards a holistic sport environment that is nurtured by the system, not in spite of that system. So my hope is that based on some of what you're sharing, and I'm sure the hundreds of people that have shared information and knowledge, they're going to not only heed the advice of these people, but also look beyond that into an indigenous practice. We talk about seven generations. What would the seven generation solution be for us? And if we can do that, I think the possibility of sport actually moving beyond just the here and now and extending into that long view, as Will was saying earlier, might be possible, but it's going to take a lot of moral courage for us to do that.
So as we, I'm just looking at the time here, maybe I'll turn it over to each of the three of you and make it really practical. So if we have to start somewhere. So if you could wave that magic wand and, you know, provide advice to the Commission, where would you start? What would be the most important thing in your opinion? Steve, I see you chomping at the bit.
[00:31:51] Speaker A: I don't know if it's something that we can mandate to the commission, but I, I'm going to harp on it because I, I just see it happening. I think, Greg, you and Will, you and Will are working on it. You know, there are government bodies saying, look, we're not going to recognize three or four different versions of sport. You're all the same. And yes, your medium might be a little bit different from sledge hockey to ice hockey to para hockey to co ed hockey, but it's still hockey. So looking at amalgamation, looking at streamlining, again, the number of organizations and entities that we're dealing with, I think is relevant. Trying to break down intergovernmental walls is probably really important to try. And again, we, Dina, you and I have talked about this. You know, if we were basketball Canada, it doesn't again, matter what the sport is. And the NSO says the, the basketball needs to be blue and there's alignment in the system from a board perspective, from a staffing perspective, and the next day the balls are all blue. That's clarity. When we talk about potentially trying to convince 800 board members across the country that the ball should be blue, it becomes a bit obviously burdensome. So I'm harping on streamlining amalgamation.
Alignment, sharing resources is first a fundamental step. And whether again, your hockey, basketball, swimming, volleyball, ring at rope jumping, roller derby, any of the above.
A lot of the administration in sport is similar.
Of course, the delivery of the sport itself is far different. But when we talk administration, I do think there's a lot of resources that can be shared and streamlined.
[00:33:40] Speaker C: Okay, who's next? Who has the one thing that they think could really start to shift the way in which we reimagine sport?
[00:33:50] Speaker B: I think for sport to be reimagined, we just have to keep moving the ball forward in terms of becoming better people generally. And that sounds airy fairy. I get it. It's an ethereal concept, but it's reality. And then so you take the ethereal concept and you cycle back exactly to what Steve says. You go on any local sports organization's website right now and you have articles of incorporation or the constitution, you've got bylaws, you've got a policy suite that can go on for 20 different documents, you've got a list of committees, you've got so much paperwork that why would any volunteer in this world of ours, where people are holding down two plus jobs just to get by. Why would anyone give of their time back to the community to endure that living hell?
[00:34:44] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: And it is. And the problem is that all of that paperwork, all of those policies, all of the applicable legislation, all of the guidelines has come about, created by good people trying to solve problems. And, you know, bless each and every one of them, their hearts are absolutely in the right place. And we've, we've in large part responded to the crisis that that came about, that I was involved in. Right. That, that Graham James situation was an earthquake throughout amateur sport. And all of this has come up in response to that. And so, mea culpa, I'm sorry, I was a part of the triggering event that created the sports bureaucracy. But it's gotta end because we have to focus on things. And one of the things that came up at the commission was we actually took a look at the definition of maltreatment in the code. And the code is a wonderful thing there for a wonderful purpose to solve every problem. But once everything is maltreatment, nothing is maltreatment. And people lose the concept of what is and isn't acceptable. And so to just pick up on what Steve was saying, my magic wand is to let's just get back to focusing on the basics. Get so much of the administra out of the way and focus on providing services to the youth and those who want to be active in the community to make our communities better. And the nsos can be a part of that by mandating that their member PSOs. And then the PSOs can mandate that their member organizations must adopt this set of documents. And the set of documents is streamlined. And it flows from the start. And the way you do that is at the top, no money flows. Sport Canada can implement that today. No money flows to an NSO that doesn't have that tree of governance within its organization.
You violate that at your risk.
[00:36:44] Speaker D: To echo Greg's piece, I think that's one of the challenges in the conversations that we have is in many organizations, there is a pretty big disconnect between the NSO and the people on the ice, on the field participating in the sport. There's only a handful in which there's a direct line between the national governing body which establishes the standards and those in the provinces and territories actually playing the sport, because their members, as we look at them from a legal perspective, are the provincial and territorial sport organizations. And I think this is a running theme. I think I can say of all of our comments on the Call today is we don't need everybody to be replicating the same structure of boards and conduct standards and expectations within their specific jurisdiction. And that's one of the big conversations that we have right now with, with folks is what do we expect of a national sport organization? What do we expect of the provinces and territories within that discipline? And what do we expect of the individuals and who sets that standards? Because it's shocking when you see the variability of what it means to be a rugby player or soccer player, basketball player across the country, and that it doesn't necessarily mean the same thing. We don't have the same expectations across the country within a single discipline, let alone within sport. I think that's one piece that we are really just trying to remove to say, if you are participating in tennis, here's what we expect and here's what happens and here's how we deal with it. So that would be, you know, it's not an easy piece, but I think that's one thing that we are moving to more is simplifying that and letting those who are closest to sport in the communities focus on delivering sport. Not when was the last time I filed my articles and have I updated them? And is my registry of directors up to date or not? Oh, no, it hasn't been updated since 1984, which happens, which was around the.
[00:38:48] Speaker C: Year you were born, Will.
[00:38:50] Speaker D: Yeah, close. I was almost a twinkle in the eye my parents knee before. Almost.
[00:38:56] Speaker C: Right. So just so delighted to listen to your wisdom, the three of you. And hopefully what we're modeling is we don't have all the answers. We have some hypotheses and we have some suggestions and we have some big dreams and goals because we care so much about good sport. And it shouldn't be the exception, it should be what we all demand. So maybe a few things that I would offer as we kind of bring an end to our conversation. This is a part one, I suspect there will be a part two, maybe a part three to this. And I've talked about this before, if I were talking to the commission, I would invite them to look at what would it look like if we actually held sport as a right, not a privilege, if we entrench sport as a basic, fundamental human right because we believe that it actually is a shaper of community and of human beings. I think that if it became a fundamental human right, then the way in which it was self organizing would be a little bit different. Or even if we use that as a hypothesis to examine how we might organize the sport system if it really were a fundamental right for children and youth. The second and I loved what Will said about the mandate and it seems to me that we've inherited a certain mandate. Back in the 90s when I started working in sport, the NSOS didn't have the huge mandate that they do have now.
Really starting to think maybe a little bit more creatively where what if the NSO's sole mandate was more national and international and PSOs and clubs were separate from that, that we weren't asking of the NSO to be all things to all people? What would that look like if we didn't have psos and tsos? How would we self organize differently? So I think just being really open and curious around the ways in which we structure the organization will allow you to kind of mind map something that isn't currently available to us. And then the final thing, and this is where Greg brought us early on, is follow the money trail. You know, right now in conversations with taxpayers, their priorities I think are going to be very different than maybe the priorities of old. So downloading the priority of funding Olympic and elite high performance sport onto the shoulders of taxpayers may not be in the best interest of a healthy human sport system, maybe privatizing it or bringing in additional sources of revenue or different ways to money manage this vibrant ecosystem. I think it's worthy of asking ourselves what would that look like? And it doesn't mean that we have the solutions, but just even in asking the questions I think it opens up a different way of seeing the future of sport. So any final comments before we we close off? Maybe I'll turn it over to you Steve and and we can bring this home.
[00:42:04] Speaker A: Well, I think we solved the world's problems in 45 minutes and no, obviously it's a big challenge and something that will take time as long as we keep moving and we talk about Greg brought up all the policy work in sport and I always kind of tell people they ask how often they should be reviewed and I say well if we tackle two or three and there's 25 or 30, it's going to take you 10. So if we can just keep moving forward, keep looking at ways to improve, I think we'll see ourselves in a better system, hopefully sooner than later. Thanks Greg and Will for your time today and Dina for playing host to the three of us. I'm sure you will get a call to testify soon too.
In the episode notes below you'll find some sport law blogs where you can find more information related to our conversation today. Thank you so much to our listeners. We are so grateful to share our vision of of Sportopia with you and to help elevate sport.
[00:43:01] Speaker C: As always, to have your say in Sportopia, email us@helloportlaw ca or on social media sportlaw ca to let us know what you want to hear about next. Until then, keep well and stay tuned for the next episode.
[00:43:22] Speaker A: It.
