Abby Spadafora

[Abby Spadafora @AbbySpadafora]

1 year ago today, with the help of @GlobalAthleteHQ and with @RobKoehler2 and @kimshore2022 by my side every step of the way, I went public for the first time with my story.
Forever thankful for our team @Gym4ChangeCan @ameliagrace1989 @theryansheehan_ @melhunt87 @armstrongbails

[Athletes Empowered @athletes_empwrd]

RECOMMENDATION #20
REQUIRE MANDATORY REPORTING DUTIES REGARDING CHILD ABUSE ACROSS ALL SPORTS PERSONNEL WITHOUT EXCEPTION

The requirement applies to all sport personnel—including head coaches, assistant coaches, athletic therapists, team doctors, administrators, board members, referees, and volunteers.

🚨 No one can claim immunity or defer responsibility to a supervisor❗

➡️ Under this standard, reporting abuse to an internal sports body (such as a club board or a safe sport officer) does not fulfill the legal duty.

🔹Personnel must report directly to child protection agencies (e.g., Children's Aid Societies) or law enforcement.

🔹Internal safe sport reporting mechanisms operate parallel to statutory reporting—they can never replace reporting to legal authorities.

➡️ Personnel are not required to prove that abuse occurred before reporting.

🔹The legal threshold in Canadian child protection legislation requires reporting whenever there are reasonable grounds to suspect that a child (under 18 or 19, depending on the province/territory) has suffered or is at risk of harm.

🔹The responsibility to investigate lies solely with child welfare professionals and police, not sport administrators.

➡️ To ensure compliance, the recommendation calls for strict enforcement across sport policy and provincial/territorial legislation:

🔹Align child protection acts across all jurisdictions to explicitly confirm that sports roles carry statutory mandatory reporting obligations.

🔹Failure to report suspected child abuse is treated as a severe breach of the Universal Code of Conduct, resulting in immediate suspension or permanent bans from sport.

🔹Whistleblower protections to ensure sports personnel can report concerns without fear of retaliation, termination, or loss of coaching credentials.

#TheFutureOfSportInCanadaComission
#AthletesEmpowered
#RipplesOfChange
#KeepMeSafe

[DanAthletics @DansTnFGraphs]

@RobKoehler2 Trying to defend their own immoral decision by repeating its limited scope and lack of consideration for its effects.

[Amelia C (she/her) 🇨🇦🇺🇦 @ameliagrace1989]

This Summit has zero credibility when it excludes the voices of survivors who worked tirelessly to push for change and were instrumental in exposing our abusive, broken sport system.

Many on the agenda are the architects and beneficiaries of that very system.

What a joke.

[Rob Koehler @RobKoehler2]

Judging by the agenda, has the Future of Sport Commission's report already been shelved?

Page 485 says it all:
"We were repeatedly told that genuine change would not be possible if the new entity is established and led by the same familiar groups and people." @SportCanada_EN

[Amelia C (she/her) 🇨🇦🇺🇦 @ameliagrace1989]

THIS PART! 👇

This agenda is akin to the wolves deciding how to best reorganize the sheep. The foxes gathering to fix the henhouse.

It’s absurd and completely contrary to the Commission we spent millions to create.

[Athletes Empowered @athletes_empwrd]

@vankayak Guessing our invitation got lost in the mail?

[Athletes Empowered @athletes_empwrd]

RECOMMENDATION #19
ESTABLISH CLEAR PROHIBITIONS ON POWER-IMBALANCED RELATIONSHIPS

The report calls for explicit, standardized definitions within safe sport policies across Canada:

Prohibit intimate, romantic, or sexual relationships whenever a coach holds direct supervisory, selection, or evaluator authority over an adult athlete.

If a genuine pre-existing or emerging relationship exists, the coach must immediately disclose it and recuse themselves from all decision-making regarding that athlete's selection, funding, or evaluation.

Place the responsibility on the authority figure (the coach), making it clear that authority inherently compromises the capacity for uncoerced consent.

Classify failure to disclose or engaging in prohibited power-imbalanced relationships as a direct violation of safe sport standards, subject to investigation and formal sanctions.

#TheFutureOfSportInCanadaComission
#RipplesOfChange
#AthletesEmpowered
#KeepMeSafe

[Athletes Empowered @athletes_empwrd]

RECOMMENDATION #18
ENFORCE IMMEDIATE ADMINISTRATIVE SUSPENSIONS FOR INDIVIDUALS UNDER ACTIVE INVESTIGATION

The moment a credible complaint of severe maltreatment is logged, the individual is legally or contractually barred from any contact with athletes, coaching staff, and facilities.

By imposing a provisional suspension at the outset, the Commission eliminates the threat of institutional grooming, ongoing coercion, or retribution against the victim or potential whistleblowers while investigators gather facts.

The Final Report mandates a standardized, non-negotiable protocol: if a complaint meets specific severity thresholds (such as allegations of grooming, physical harm, or sexual abuse), a suspension must be triggered immediately.

Failure by a sport organization to enforce an immediate administrative suspension when directed by independent oversight bodies will result in the immediate reduction or complete revocation of public funding.

Individual clubs or National Sport Organizations (NSOs) will not have the power to decide if, when, or how a suspension is applied. The mandate is issued by independent, arm's-length bodies like the Centralized Sport Entity.

To ensure a suspended individual cannot simply exit one club and begin coaching at another, the interim suspension is immediately logged into the Pan-Canadian Registry of Sanctioned Individuals, rendering them ineligible across all provinces, territories, and sports levels nationwide.

#TheFutureOfSportInCanadaComission
#AthletesEmpowered
#RipplesOfChange
#KeepMeSafe

[Athletes Empowered @athletes_empwrd]

RECOMMENDATION #17
FUND LONG-TERM THERAPY SUBSIDIES DIRECTLY FOR VERIFIED VICTIMS OF SPORT-RELATED ABUSE

The Commission notes that deep-seated trauma from physical, sexual, or emotional maltreatment requires sustained, years-long psychological support. Subsidies are designed to fund long-term therapy, acknowledging that healing does not operate on an arbitrary corporate timeline.

Funding will bypass sports federations entirely. Money flows directly to the verified victims or their certified healthcare providers, ensuring that survivors do not have to repeatedly beg an organization for financial assistance to heal from the harm that the organization permitted.

To ensure that therapy access is never leveraged, weaponized, or conditioned upon silence, this funding mechanism is managed entirely away from National Sport Organizations (NSOs).

This initiative is rooted in the Commission’s demand for a complete, phased overhaul of the sports system over five years. It is backed by the understanding that a system cannot be deemed "safe" if it fails to fund the recovery of the people it broke.

Victims will not be subjected to hostile, adversarial legal thresholds just to access mental health care. The framework values the survivor’s lived experience and psychological well-being over rigid institutional skepticism.

The Final Report positions long-term therapy subsidies as a core element of restorative justice and institutional accountability. It forces the sports ecosystem to recognize that its duty of care to an athlete does not end when they retire, exit the sport, or speak out against systemic abuse.

#TheFutureOfSportInCanadaCommission
#AthletesEmpoweres
#RipplesOfChange
#KeepMeSafe

[Amelia C (she/her) 🇨🇦🇺🇦 @ameliagrace1989]

Our system is so utterly broken. Why do we prioritize a person’s ability to coach over children and athletes’ fundamental rights to safety? Insanity.

[Amelia C (she/her) 🇨🇦🇺🇦 @ameliagrace1989]

A recap: refuses to call a full inquiry into abuse in sport. Launches a toothless Commission with no enforcement powers. Commission recommends full overhaul of system. Her successor then injects billions into that broken system with no sign of change.

And she becomes CEO.

[Amelia C (she/her) 🇨🇦🇺🇦 @ameliagrace1989]

See previous tweet. $60M to the exact orgs responsible for the abuse crisis. No accountability. No indication of the Commission’s recommendations being implemented or followed. Just more money and the same people rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. 🙃

[Athletes Empowered @athletes_empwrd]

RECOMMENDATION #16
EXPAND INDEPENDENT COMPLAINT ACCESS TO INCLUDE AMATEUR, RECREATIONAL, AND YOUTH LEAGUES

The Commission emphasizes that safety is a basic human right, not a high-performance privilege. The mandate expands independent oversight so that a minor in a local recreational league or an amateur youth club has the exact same institutional protections as an Olympian.

By granting amateur and youth participants access to external mechanisms, complaints are stripped away from volunteer board members who lack the qualifications, neutrality, or legal authority to manage them.

Because the federal government cannot constitutionally run local community programming, the Final Report calls on provinces and territories to establish independent safe sport authorities.
These regional bodies act as the dedicated, arm's-length intake platforms for grassroots complaints. They ensure that amateur and youth sports organizations are no longer allowed to self-police or run biased, internal disciplinary panels.

Expanding complaint access ensures that grassroots infractions are formally processed, investigated, and cleanly funnelled into the proposed Centralized Sport Entity and national sanctions registry. If a local youth coach is sanctioned, they are blocked across the entire country.

#TheFutureOfSportInCanadaComission
#AthletesEmpowered
#RipplesOfChange
#KeepMeSafe

[Athletes Empowered @athletes_empwrd]

RECOMMENDATION #15
MANDATE TRAUMA-INFORMED EDUCATION FOR ALL SPORT ADJUDICATORS

Adjudicators will be trained on how trauma alters memory retention and recall. The mandatory education ensures adjudicators understand that delayed emotional responses or fragmented memories are common neurological impacts of trauma, rather than signs of deception.

Adjudicators will be trained to recognize how systemic coercion, fear of selection retaliation, and institutional grooming prevent victims from reporting abuse immediately.

Educated adjudicators are required to structure hearings to minimize psychological harm. This includes enforcing strict guidelines against aggressive or predatory cross-examination tactics used by sports federations' legal teams to intimidate survivors.

The training prepares adjudicators to actively utilize trauma-informed procedural adaptations. This includes permitting virtual testimonies, utilizing screens, allowing support persons, and establishing flexible scheduling to prevent emotional exhaustion during intense proceedings.

This mandatory curriculum will be standardized and administered by centralized, arm's-length bodies recommended in the Final Report, such as the Centralized Sport Entity or the independent Pan-Canadian Safe Sport Authority. This removes training design from individual sport organizations that may hold institutional bias.

No arbitrator or adjudicator will be permitted to sit on panels for independent bodies or regional tribunals, without active, verified trauma-informed certification.

#TheFutureOfSportInCanadaComission
#RipplesOfChange
#AthletesEmpowered
#KeepMeSafe

[Athletes Empowered @athletes_empwrd]

RECOMMENDATION #14
HARMONIZE PROVINCIAL AND TERRITORIAL SAFE SPORT CODES

The Commission recommends that all provinces and territories officially adopt a universal code of conduct, legislation, or regulations.

The Final Report specifies that provinces and territories shall establish a provincial or territorial safe sport authority to directly administer reports of alleged code violations.

These regional bodies must operate as independent public or non-profit entities. This shifts the burden of complaint intake and tracking away from biased local club boards and places it under a unified, systemic umbrella.

Historically, if a provincial body suspended a coach, that sanction was not legally binding on community organizations in another province. Harmonizing the codes ensures that a safety violation or a suspension in one jurisdiction immediately blocks that individual across the entire country.

#TheFutureOfSportInCanadaComission
#AthletesEmpowered
#RipplesOfChange
#KeepMeSafe

[Athletes Empowered @athletes_empwrd]

RECOMMENDATION #13
STANDARDIZE ATHLETE RIGHTS CHARTERS

The Commission noted that high-performance athletes often face severe pressure to sign highly restrictive, one-sided "Athlete Agreements" to secure carding, funding, or national team selection. Standardized charters reshape these agreements to embed core human rights, transparency, and accountability into high-performance training systems.

The charter serves as a legally binding bill of rights that cannot be overridden by an individual sport federation's internal bylaws. It guarantees protections derived from international frameworks, ensuring high-performance athletes have a right to a safe training environment free from abuse, harassment, discrimination, and emotional degradation.

The standardized charter outlines clear, equitable boundaries regarding athlete funding, carding criteria, name and likeness rights, and the freedom to generate personal income without facing arbitrary selection penalties from National Sport Organizations (NSOs).

The Commission structures this mandate to ensure it is not a passive policy document. High-performance programs must officially sign, adopt, and embed the standardized charter into their operational agreements on an annual basis.

Compliance with the annual charter is directly tied to the federal government's funding structures. If an NSO refuses to adopt the standardized charter or infringes upon the codified rights of its athletes, it faces the immediate reduction or total withdrawal of public funding.

#TheFutureOfSportInCanadaComission
#AthletesEmpowered
#RipplesOfChange
#KeepMeSafe

[Athletes Empowered @athletes_empwrd]

RECOMMENDATION #12
INTRODUCE COMPULSORY PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY AUDITS

The Commission observed that psychological harm is the most widespread form of maltreatment in Canadian athletics. Historically, national programs only investigated physical or sexual abuse after a formal complaint was lodged, leaving chronic emotional abuse, public humiliation, and extreme psychological pressure unaddressed.

The Final Report outlines the core operational pillars of these compulsory audits as follows:

🔹Measuring the Toxic Baseline🔹

Instead of waiting for a traumatized athlete to come forward, the audit acts as a mandatory, preventative diagnostic tool. It evaluates leading environmental indicators, including coaching communication styles, realistic training workloads, and whether athletes feel safe expressing concerns without facing selection penalties.

🔹Financial Penalties for Toxic Climates🔹

If an audit reveals a high-risk score—such as widespread fear of coaching retaliation or normalization of emotional degradation—the NSO faces immediate conditional reviews, reductions, or a complete suspension of their federal grant allocations.

🔹Neutral Oversight Entities🔹

The audits will be mandated, scheduled, and assessed by independent, arm's-length bodies like the Centralized Sport Entity. These third-party auditors utilize standardized, evidence-based metrics to assess the true environment on the ground.

🔹Holding Executives Accountable🔹

The audit goes beyond examining athlete-to-coach dynamics. It evaluates whether the NSO’s senior leadership, board of directors, and high-performance directors are actively trained to recognize power imbalances and structural bias within their programs.

#TheFutureOfSportInCanadaComission
#AthletesEmpowered
#RipplesOfChange
#KeepMeSafe

[Amelia C (she/her) 🇨🇦🇺🇦 @ameliagrace1989]

Attending law school is an immense privilege.

That they have given that privilege to a man who SA’d and murdered one woman and SA’d and paralyzed another, with a moderate to high risk to reoffend, is beyond comprehension.

This world truly hates women.

[Athletes Empowered @athletes_empwrd]

RECOMMENDATION #11
IMPOSE WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION STATUTES ACROSS ALL OPERATIONAL LEVELS

Under the Final Report's framework, implementing comprehensive whistleblower protections involves several core pillars:

🔹Every sport organization seeking government recognition must officially enact robust, legally binding anti-retaliation rules.

🔹The statues must protect everyone within a sport's operational lifecycle—including high-performance athletes, entry-level grassroots volunteers, board members, administrative employees, and contract staff.

🔹Organizations are explicitly barred from demoting staff, withholding athlete funding, altering training schedules, removing athletes from team selection pools, or socially isolating whistleblowers as punishment for reporting wrongdoing in good faith.

🔹Reports will flow into independent, arm's-length bodies like a Centralized Sport Entity.

🔹The centralized oversight bodies must take all reasonable measures to legally guard the whistleblower's identity, ensuring details that could inadvertently identify the reporter cannot be shared with the sport federation or accused party without explicit consent.

🔹If a National Sport Organization (NSO) or provincial body is found to have penalized or muzzled a whistleblower, they face the immediate reduction or total withdrawal of federal and provincial grant support.

#TheFutureOfSportInCanadaComission
#AthletesEmpowered
#RipplesOfChange
#KeepMeSafe

[Sam @samanthacp_]

i just think it's funny that the nhl tried to capitalize (very poorly) on heated rivalry, and jacob tierney said absolutely the fuck not