Kerry Moynihan, a Cochrane resident and long-time sport administrator, will be one of a collection of people from across the country who will travel to Ottawa in September for a national summit that will determine the future of all sports in Canada.
The Future of Sport in Canada Commission was started in December of 2023 by the Trudeau government, and its aim is to improve both safe sport in Canada and the entire system of governance, funding, and accountability in general.
For over 40 years Moynihan has been involved in sports administration. He’s organized multiple Canada Games and has led efforts to lead Canada’s Olympic teams, and has been a Board of Director for Ski Jump Canada, a board member for the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame, and is member of the Town of Cochrane’s Parks and Recreation Committee.
But it’s in his current role as the board chair of Field Hockey Canada that landed him an invite to the Future of Sport in Canada Commission’s National Summit where he will be one of a handful of people who will provide feedback to the Commission and engage in a dialogue that will help to change the future of sports in the country.
“It’s [about] safe sport, ongoing funding, and the structure of sport and how sport is funded by the government and the private sector,” Moynihan said of the Commission. “I have a good perspective from working with all levels of sport, from the Town [of Cochrane] to the Olympic level.”
The primary and overarching focus of the Commission is to find ways to make sport safer for its participants, to rid sport of the maltreatment and abuse that occurs at all levels of sport.
To do so, the Commission sought the input from stakeholders and experts from within and outside the sport system-- including victims and survivors of maltreatment in sport-- to highlight lived experiences and to support healing and make recommendations on how to improve the sport system in Canada.
The Commission will produce two reports and hold a National Summit for participants to deliberate preliminary findings and recommendations. As the representative of Field Hockey Canada, Moynihan was invited to participate in the summit, and even though safety in sport is a priority, Moynihan said his goal, and Field Hockey Canada’s goal, is to inform the discussion around funding and the structure of sport.
Moynihan has experience making a lot with a little– his first job in sports management was organizing a cycling event in Ontario in 1979 where he was the only staff– to putting on massive events with seemingly endless resources, like when he was the general manager for two different Canada Games where he managed 5,000 volunteers and 3,000 athletes and a budget of $25 million.
Moynihan says the management structure and the bureaucracy of sport can be trimmed down, and the money meant for it allocated back into the athletes themselves.
“For field hockey, some say we should be combined with ice hockey and cut down on the administration. Hockey is Hockey,” he said. “Put more money in athletes and coaches and less money in administration.
Commission key to Federal government’s Heritage Ministry
In May, 2024, the federal government appointed Justice Lise Maisonneuve to lead the commission and allocated $10.6 million over the next two years for it to review Canada’s sport system.
“We need to change the culture of sport in Canada,” said former Minister of Sport and Physical Activity Carla Qualtrough last May. “Our sport system failed victims and survivors of abuse and maltreatment, including children. We must understand how and why this happened, and we must take action to prevent it from happening in the future.”
The Commission is now under the purview of Stephen Guilbeault, the Minister of Canadian Culture and Identity. In March, Guilbeault stated that “sport builds communities, stimulates economies, and contributes to the overall well-being of Canadians and the country.” But, he added that without sufficient safeguards and accountability, sport “can also do harm.”
"That's why the Government of Canada is working to build a safe, inclusive and welcoming sport system so that Canadians can experience the transformative power of sport,” Guilbeault said in a government press release.
