Canada’s government is under pressure to launch an independent judicial inquiry into abuse in sport during a series of parliamentary committees in the country’s House of Commons following harrowing testimonies by abuse survivors in December.

Appeals for a widespread inquiry into abuse from athletes, politicians, and academics have so far been resisted by Justin Trudeau’s government and his Minister for Sport, Pascale St-Onge, sparking one senior member of the government to split from her party to demand “real leaders step up”.

“Abuse is a dirty hidden secret in sports and what people are seeing is the tip of the iceberg,” Kirsty Duncan, the Deputy Leader of Government in the House of Commons, told the Guardian.

“The problem of sexual assault, abuse, and harassment in sport is multifaceted and deep rooted. It is about the assault, abuse, and harassment of athletes by coaches and trainers and their support staff. The only way we can get to the complexity of this issue is through this inquiry.”

Canada was rocked last year by scandals across many sports that not only exposed abusive coaches but also institutional mismanagement of abuse by national sporting organizations. Among a long list of revelations across many sports:

• Hockey Canada used player registration fees for a secret fund to settle sexual assault cases

• Gymnastics Canada had its government funding frozen after widespread allegations of abuse.

• An investigation into how Canada Soccer managed sexual harassment allegations against a national team coach later convicted of sexual assault revealed legal advice recommended not disclosing the true reasons for his exit.

• Water Polo Canada faces a lawsuit from former players alleging physical, psychological, and emotional abuse, sexual harassment and mental suffering.

• Swimming, skiing, bobsleigh, rowing and boxing are among other sports where allegations of abuse have recently surfaced.

“There has to be a strong signal that safe sport matters,” Duncan said. “It has to be the number one priority ahead of winning medals and tournaments. We will not get where we need to be without a national public enquiry across sport to probe the darkest reaches of the sport system.”

Two parliamentary committees held hearings on Canadian sport late last year. The Heritage Committee investigated governance issues related to sports federations and the Status of Women Committee heard from victims of abuse across multiple sports.

Following the committee hearings Rob Koehler, director general of Global Athlete, an international athlete advocacy organization, told the Guardian an inquiry was needed in Canada to allow athletes a platform to speak about a sports system that did not prioritize their welfare.

“Athletes have been silenced by systems and have been afraid to speak out,” Koehler said. “Sport very easily and quickly names and shames athletes. Athletes have no power, they have no financial backing, and they fight for themselves. Sport authorities, coaches, and administrators are backed by structures, organizations, and legal teams and it is harder to make them accountable. There is a pure power imbalance in play.”

Canada’s Minister for Sport, Pascale St-Onge, has yet to commit to an inquiry instead citing the creation of the Office of the Sports Integrity Commissioner [OSIC] in 2022 as the required progress in managing allegations of abuse. St-Onge did not respond to requests from The Guardian for an interview.

Critics have described St-Onge’s muted response to calls for an inquiry as “woefully inadequate”. A coalition of almost 100 academics recently wrote to Prime Minister Trudeau claiming “without complete independence from Canada’s sport authorities, the OSIC will always lack the powers necessary to resolve this crisis. The OSIC is an inadequate response to the toxic culture of abuse.”

Yet St-Onge is not without support in her reluctance to commit to an inquiry. Gretchen Kerr, a professor at the University of Toronto who focuses on athlete maltreatment, told the Guardian she does not believe an inquiry is required because research into abuse in Canadian sport already exists. Kerr is widely regarded as an expert on abuse in sport in Canada and also serves as a volunteer harassment officer for Gymnastics Canada in a role that involves managing and investigating complaints of athlete maltreatment.

“A lot of people don’t realize what we already know,” Kerr says. “We know the prevalence. We know the types of harms. We know what it is caused by and we have some good solutions. All of that has not made it into the sports landscape broadly. I would say we know enough to put our resources into solutions rather than understanding the problem further. It is time to act and time to move.

“The roots of a judicial inquiry are that athletes want a voice to talk about their experiences. That is really important and I think there are better ways to get at that than through a judicial inquiry. I’m thinking more of restorative justice processes where there are forums where athletes can talk about their experiences and get the support they need to deal with it.”

Athlete frustration in reporting abuse and how reports are often managed has been highlighted in a video by former gymnast Ryan Sheehan. In a video posted on YouTube, Sheehan described multiple incidents of abuse by an unnamed athletic trainer who held multiple roles in high level Canadian sport. Sheehan also described the complicated path athletes must take in reporting abuse and the lack of accountability for both individuals and organizations enabling abuse.

“The part I find so hard to accept is that there are so many people that are paid to protect us and say they are there to protect us and all these processes and policies that all these national sports organizations pay for to protect athletes and fundamentally it does nothing,” Sheehan said in the video.

Kerr, who was involved in the case when it was reported to Gymnastics Canada and is name-checked by Sheehan in the video, said she “had a different interpretation of the process [to Sheehan]. I can’t answer whether [Sheehan’s] experience is typical. My work with the athletes has to stay confidential so it is difficult to talk about [this case].”

Kerr added: “The problems around the complaint mechanisms have been recognised broadly across sport. That’s a reason why OSIC has been established. It is very important and a huge step forward.”

Kerr agrees good governance by sporting organizations is a major hurdle in tackling abuse. In a brief written with academic colleagues submitted to a Heritage Committee hearing in December she noted the same committee had called for the board minutes of national sports organizations in bobsleigh and skeleton, gymnastics, rugby, skating, soccer, and swimming, alleging coverups. “If there is to be a national inquiry it would be more productive to investigate the woeful lack of transparency and accountability in Canadian sports governance,” Kerr wrote.

The Guardian previously reported on last year’s McLaren Report into Canada Soccer and how the organization handled allegations against former Canada’s U-20 women’s national team coach and now-convicted sex offender Bob Birarda. The McLaren Report said Canada Soccer leaders, including Victor Montagliani and Peter Montopoli, “mischaracterized” the reasons behind Birarda’s sudden exit from a national team program. Montagliani is president of Concacaf and a vice-president of Fifa and has said legal advice was behind the misleading narrative. Montopoli is currently chief operating officer of the Canadian section of the 2026 World Cup. Fifa has backed the executives since the report was made public. “The report … confirmed that Canada Soccer acted in good faith and that there was no evidence of a cover up,” Fifa said in a November 2022 statement to the Guardian.

Global Athlete’s Rob Koeher continues to be surprised by the lack of accountability across sport: “It is unthinkable in any other industry that if someone was involved in cover ups they would be still in their position to be responsible for one of the biggest events Canada is going to be hosting. That is mind boggling and shows you the lack of ability for sport to self regulate. Government provides money and funding for these organizations but without the ability to have oversight. It is ridiculous.”

Kirsty Duncan believes the evidence of the past 12 months – and longer – point to no other alternative but for Canada to hold an inquiry that can have global repercussions.

“The current approaches that focus on symbolic compliance and avoiding legal liability and protecting reputations and legacies have not changed the number of abuse cases,” Duncan said. “Real leaders step up. A whole lot of athletes were harmed and let down shamefully by the despicable actions of people in power. It is a decades old dirty secret and we have to fix it for the next generation in and around sport.”