With Canadian Hockey Amid a spate of scandals surrounding sexual abuse allegations, a new poll finds that 60% of Canadians say the recent revelations reflect a broader problem than sexual harassment, assault and violence in hockey culture in Canada.
A new one Ipsos . poll Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos, said women are more likely to view the allegations as a more widespread issue rather than a sequence of individual events.
And the problem is not limited to hockey, he added.
Hockey Canada: Call for cultural change sparks a reckoning for sport
Read more
“People see it as a problem with organized sports, not just with Canadian Hockey, especially if you ask women,” Bricker told Global News.
Hockey Canada has come under close scrutiny since this spring over its handling of alleged players’ sexual assaults, including two involving members of the World Juniors team from five years ago. 2003 and 2018.
“There is certainly a lot of caution among people about how the world of amateur hockey is operating these days following the allegations,” Bricker said.
In terms of accountability, most Canadians think the responsibility lies mainly with those in power – managers, directors and coaches – rather than the players and their parents, the poll found. see.
Specifically, 73% pointed the finger at managers and directors, 64% at coaches, while 60% said team owners and players have a responsibility to let this culture live.
Facing widespread criticism, Hockey Canada has seen sponsors jump ships and provincial member bodies away from national organization.
Telus, Tim Hortons, Canadian Tire, Sobeys, Scotiabank and Esso have all cut ties with Canadian Hockey for the upcoming 2022-23 season.
A majority of Canadians, 85%, say this is the right thing to do, the Ipsos poll found.
“Whether it’s a corporate sponsor or a government sponsor, people don’t feel that Canadian Hockey and the amateur hockey industry in this country can continue in the direction it’s headed,” Bricker said. moving forward with no change,” Bricker said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sports Minister Pascale St-Onge are among those who have repeatedly called for a change in leadership. Trudeau even floated the idea of creating a new governing body for the sport.
Amidst the outcry, Canadian Hockey to be announced on October 11 that its CEO, Scott Smith, and the entire board of directors will step down.
The board will remain in place until a new board is elected at the annual meeting of Hockey Canada on December 17.
Hockey Canada should think beyond the hockey world to diversify into new board, experts say
Going forward, most Canadians, 78%, hope that a new board will make a difference.
Eight out of 10 also agree that players should take training in sexual harassment and violence, the poll found.
“People don’t think the status quo can exist,” says Bricker. “They believe change is necessary, and they also believe that improvement will come from change.”
Hockey Canada has announced its intention to follow the recommendations laid out in an interim report by former Supreme Court justice Thomas Cromwell.
In August, Cromwell was tasked with conducting a full review of Hockey Canada’s governance after it was reported that the organization had reached a non-disclosure agreement with a woman who alleges she was assaulted. sex by eight players, including members of the country’s 2018 world youth team. None of the charges were proven in court.
– With files from the Canadian Press
These are some of the findings of the Ipsos poll conducted October 18-20, 2022, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,001 Canadians 18 years of age and older was interviewed. Quotas and weights are used to ensure that the composition of the sample reflects the composition of the Canadian population according to census parameters. The accuracy of Ipsos online polls is measured using confidence intervals. In this case, the poll was accurate to within ±3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, all Canadians 18 years of age and older polled. Confidence intervals will be wider between subsets of the population. All sample surveys and probes may have other sources of error, including, but not limited to, range and measurement errors.
& copies 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
