CANADA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Janie Soublière, Soublière Sport Law
The SDRCC operates four different Tribunals. • Ordinary, which mostly deals with selection and carding cases – meaning athletes who dispute their non-selection to a specific team and athletes who dispute their non-funding from the Athlete Assistance Program of the Government of Canada. • Doping, which deals with disputes between the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES) and athletes or other persons bound by the Canadian Anti-Doping Program (CADP). • Safeguarding, which for the most part deals with alleged violations of the Universal Code of Conduct to Prevent and Address Maltreat - ment in Sport (UCCMS). • Appeals, restricted to appeals brought under the CADP and UCCMS. The most common disputes referred to the SDRCC involve selection cases, carding cas - es, discipline, anti-doping and more recently safe sport cases. Each of these cases has its unique features, and each dispute will have to be decided on a case-by-case assessment, taking account of all pertinent factual, regulatory and legal circumstances. A significant body of case law has evolved over the years in all these types of cases. All SDRCC decisions are posted on its website . Developing Trends In the 2024 Canada Trends & Developments chapter in this guide, three developing trends were underlined, which stood out as being most impactful. These three trends certainly continue to impact all sport law practitioners in Canada: the growth of women’s professional team sports; safeguarding; and competition manipulation and sport gambling.
This year, three other trends are noted that are believed to be of significant impact to sport law in Canada: • professional sport; • changes to the Canadian Safe Sport mecha - nism; and • increased attention to sport integrity-culture- governance. Professional Sport – With Special Attention to the Canadian Premiere League Canada runs its own American Football League – called the Canadian Football League (CFL), has seven teams competing in the National Hockey League (NHL); one team competing respectively in the National Basketball Association (NBA), in Major League Baseball (MLB), and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA); three men’s teams competing in Major League Soccer (MLS); three teams in the Women’s MLS; three teams competing in the quickly expanding Pro - fessional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL); and eight teams competing the Men’s Canadian Pre - mier Soccer League (CPL). In April 2025, play will also start for the newly established Women’s soccer Northern Super League (NSL). There are of course countless legal considera - tions linked to professional sport related to the administration and operations of each of these professional leagues, their athletes’ careers, their coaching staff, their funding, their owners, the rules of the governing league and of course their collective bargaining agreements to name the most obvious. As stated above, there is a lot of work being done by various lawyers through - out Canada with regards to contract negotia - tions, sponsorship and broadcasting rights, IP, image rights and privacy issues, marketing, risk management, regulation, discipline, training
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