Jacob Glover

March 25, 2026, v1

Introduction

I am troubled by the Future of Sport Commission’s presentation of restorative justice in its final report—particularly the way it juxtaposes restorative justice against what it calls a “right” to a formal investigative process (p 393). Promisingly, the Commission suggests that restorative justice and restorative practices should be used. However, it positions this approach as subordinate to what it calls a “right to pursue a formal investigative process”. According to the Commission, this right belongs exclusively to victims of abuse or maltreatment.

The difficulty with this framing is that the Commission asserts a “right” without identifying any legal, policy, or institutional foundation for it. In the Canadian sport governance system, complainants do not possess a right to compel a particular investigative process. And perhaps more importantly to me, presenting such a right as necessary to protect justice for complainants mischaracterizes restorative justice as less rigorous or less capable of protecting procedural fairness.

Legally Speaking

The Commission does not identify any legal or policy basis for it. On my review there is no explicit right in the Universal Code of Conduct to Prevent and Address Maltreatment in Sport (UCCMS) nor in the Canadian Safe Sport Program Rules guaranteeing a formal investigation. And, since in Canadian administrative law, the procedural fairness protections emerge primarily in response to decisions impacting the rights and interests of respondents, without more explanation and analysis it is hard for me to see where this right comes from on a legal basis.

If anything, in fact, the contractual structure of typical independent complaint management structures complicates the Commission’s assertion. Firstly, it would never be the victim or survivor of maltreatment asserting this right because the policy structure does not create a mechanism for that assertion; it creates a venue for that person to complain about a behavior which, if true, would constitute a breach of the contract between the sport organization and/or Sport Integrity Canada. It is then up to the organization with jurisdiction to respond to the complaint to determine if the complaint is true. The process of that determination is not up to the complainant under our current policy structures in Canada.

Relatedly, even in the current system not all complaints generate investigations. This is already reflected in the UCCMS and CSSP Rules, which contemplates different pathways depending on the nature and severity of the issue. If that is the case, then the notion of a universal right to such a process becomes even more difficult to sustain.

Secondly, the notion that victims or survivors have a right to a specific kind of process suggests that the fact of their status as someone who experienced abuse attracts that right to them. That is out of order. The process for determining that someone has experienced abuse must occur first. Otherwise, we risk presuming the respondent’s guilt or liability while allowing the complainant to determine the kind of process used to prove that presumption.

Creating Expectations

The Commission’s assertion of a right which does not really exist in a clear way irresponsibly creates an expectation for people who are vulnerable and traumatized that they have access to a specific kind of response from a sport system and that they are in a specific kind of control when they are not. When those expectations cannot be met, those people become more frustrated and lose trust in the very system intended to respond to harm.

Rather than positioning this important value as a right which carries a very specific valence in today’s culture, it would be a more defensible to suggest that individuals who raise concerns ought to be treated with a care, concern, dignity, and respect. This response structure and set of values might manifest in a thorough fact-finding exercise of some sort, but it might not be a conventional investigation. For that matter a conventional investigation might not meet those principles to begin with. Such a framework allows for appropriate triage and response without presupposing that a particular procedural mechanism is always required. It also does not engage in so-called ‘rights talk’ and engender expectations which then must be thwarted by the very people attempting to do the sensitive work.

Ultimately, these processes are not civil lawsuits between individuals. They are mechanisms for addressing alleged violations of codes of conduct within contractual relationships in sport organizations. Unless the system is redesigned to resemble a civil litigation model, the idea that an individual complainant possesses a legal right to pursue an investigation does not align with how these systems actually operate.

With Regards to Restorative Justice

As an advocate for restorative justice in sport, I’m also worried that this juxtaposition misrepresents the potential impact and seriousness of a restorative process and the integration of restorative justice as a philosophy into justice-seeking processes in sport.

The implication of the Commission’s juxtaposition between ‘restorative practices’ and ‘formal investigative processes’ is that formal investigative processes provide a higher level of safety, voluntariness, and/or even justice itself. This assumption is not explained. And, in fact, a large body of scholarship drawing on restorative justice, relational theory, and Indigenous legal traditions critiques precisely the kinds of adversarial, rights-based investigative processes that the Commission seems to elevate. These critiques show how such processes can undermine safety and voluntariness rather than protect them.

By contrast, the Commission suggests that restorative justice could somehow override or compromise those values. This framing risks prejudicing people against restorative processes by implying that they are less rigorous or less capable of producing meaningful justice outcomes. It also suggests that formal investigative processes offer a more complete or serious form of justice.

Underlying this framing is a misunderstanding of how procedural fairness operates within restorative justice processes. There is a persistent assumption that restorative processes are “informal,” and that informality necessarily entails a lack of rigor. But restorative justice can attend to the same procedural fairness principles invoked by the Commission in its 27th Call to Action, item © which lists safeguards such as impartiality, the right to be heard, and adequate disclosure.

Impartiality, for example, is foundational to restorative facilitation. A facilitator who advocates for one side would undermine the process itself. The facilitator’s role is to create conditions in which participants can move toward a forward-looking resolution together.

The right to be heard is equally central. Participation lies at the heart of restorative justice. Those directly and indirectly affected by the issue have the opportunity to speak, to shape the discussion, and to contribute to the outcome. In many cases, participants also help shape the process itself. This actually gives individuals more agency than they typically have within standardized investigative procedures.

Adequate disclosure functions differently but remains present. In adversarial systems, disclosure is essential because each party must put forward their entire case. Restorative processes operate with a different orientation, i.e. toward accountability as a mechanism for future planning rather than adversarial blame seeking. Participants, therefore, benefit from honestly sharing the full scope of their concerns and perspectives in order to reach a meaningful resolution.

For these reasons, there is little legal basis for claiming that a right to a formal investigative process must exist in order to preserve safety or procedural justice. Systems can certainly be designed to include investigative pathways, and in some cases that may be appropriate. But presenting such a pathway as a necessary safeguard risks undermining the potential of restorative justice in sport.

This framing may also reflect an effort to reassure critics of restorative justice who view it as insufficiently serious. In other words, the Commission may be signaling, implicitly, that punitive investigative mechanisms will remain available. Ultimately, there are a variety of differences between adversarial contractual systems of complaint management, but the feature that people fixate on is whether a ‘guilty’ respondent will be adequately punished.

Of course, this is antithetical to much of what restorative justice stands for on a philosophical level, so if someone is genuinely committed to that outcome of a process then restorative justice is not the answer for them. That being said, if the Commission is serious about integrating restorative justice into sport then it should have more carefully described the philosophical differences between the conventional investigative mechanisms and those that offer something different rather than jeopardize the uptake of restorative ways of working in this way.

Conclusion

The Commission’s suggestion therefore risks doing two things simultaneously: it may create expectations among harmed individuals that a legally grounded right exists when it does not, and it may reinforce the belief that investigative processes are inherently more just, safe, or meaningful than a restorative process.

This distinction is unhelpful. Rather than strengthening access to justice in sport, it risks undermining the very restorative mechanisms that could meaningfully improve it. Overwhelmingly, research tells us that maltreatment in sport is not reducible to individual behaviour but is a product of the culture and context in which it occurs. Restorative justice offers a conceptual framework and set of time-tested practices for responding to maltreatment in a way which more adequately maps on to the relational and cultural nature of maltreatment. Unfortunately, the way the Commission proposes to leverage restorative justice implies that we ought to focus on formal rights and obligations rather than the people and their needs inside of sport. This positioning will make it harder to advance substantive initiatives in sport which focus on transforming structures and culture. It re-emphasizes formal legalistic policies as the answer or avenue to safety rather than a recognizing that safety in sport needs to be a whole-of-sport project which is dynamic and ongoing and, most importantly, centres human needs rather than system efficiencies.