CANADA’S HORSE-SPORT AIRS ITS DIRTY LAUNDRY

The horse industry contributes more than $19 billion annually to our economy, supporting 150,000-plus jobs. Horse sport, which accounts for a big slice of that pie, is normally a community that hides its dirty laundry (I know from experience). Today, it’s flapping all over the place.

In 2014 Equestrian Canada’s (EC) new CEO, Eva Havaris, was mandated to streamline the governance structure at EC as a not-forprofit and oversee a rebranding process. Havaris was new to the equestrian world. Previous to EC, she was CEO of Taekwondo Canada, where her tenure was marked by conflict with stakeholders, contentious enough to require the services of the Sports Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada (SDRCC), a quasi-court for resolving intra-organizational dissension. The issue was controversy over disempowerment of provincial associations, with accusations of undemocratically wielded authority at the executive level. The dissenters won. Havaris later resigned.

EC is now in the midst of a similar crisis of non-confidence in its CEO Havaris and president Jorge Bernhard, amidst similar allegations of executive overreach, insufficient financial transparency and a near-void in communications between executive and the EC community. What began as a logical desire — harmonization of services and accountability — has become a hot, steaming mess. Since similar federations have accomplished the same objective smoothly and democratically, personnel may be the problem here.

Discontent has been simmering since Havaris took the — ahem — reins. Previous to Havaris’s governance restructuring, the Olympic disciplines — Dressage, Jumper and Three-Day Eventing — managed their own affairs, some more efficiently than others. Jumping was extremely successful, with a long track record of profitability and accountability. In mid-January, Hunter/Jumper stakeholder Terrance “Torchy” Millar, a longtime pillar of the competition, coaching and training community, set the disruption ball rolling by resigning from the EC board, citing disagreement with Havaris’s direction. With decisionmaking harmonized, but now firmly under executive control, Millar told me in an interview, the administration has “appropriated authority over functions of which they have no knowledge,” and communication with stakeholders “has been problematic to say the least.”

Millar’s resignation appears to have unleashed widespread frustration. Another three board members resigned within a five-week period (totalling a third of the board), all high-profile horse sport leaders, including

Crucial competition roles, formerly filled by knowledgeable, capable volunteers, now reportedly snubbed by obstructionist staff have, the letter states, resulted in “missed deadlines, blatant errors and incorrect publications.” After an emergency board meeting in late January, where issues were not resolved, a second letter, supportive of the first, was issued, signed by internationally respected icons of the Jumper world: Ian Millar, Eric Lamaze, Mac Cone, Beth Underhill, Lisa Carlsen, and other elite riders.

In an interview, Havaris said she has no discomfort regarding the $80,000 contract to the president’s son, as, she said, it is not illegal for not-for-profits to bypass RFP processes. She attributes EC’s struggles to the fact that she inherited an organization with “literally no governance” and the difficulties of dealing with a “passionate community.”

She denies critics claims to meet the needs and expectations of our various communities,” it’s mostly an exercise in self-exculpation. “Change is not easy”; a “monumental task”; “unanticipated personnel changes”; “the failure on the part of a previous CFO”; leaders are “working on the serious issues we’ve had.” The statement affirms that the financial situation “is clearly not out of control,” but does not include details. The statement also scolds critics: Personal attacks “do nothing but divide organizations” and “airing of ‘dirty laundry’ in public does not serve EC or its membership well.”

Dissenting eventers have created a closed Facebook protest group called “Enough EC,” with more than 1,500 members to date, including top riders. Eventer concerns mirror the Jumpers, with additional Eventing-specific confrontations dragged before the SportsDispute Resolution Centre. The SDRCC’s findings came out strongly against EC. (The arbitrator took the extraordinary step of making EC pay both sides’ legal fees.)

None of the claims have been proven, but at the moment there are allegations that $400,000 in EC money has not been accounted for and that organization bylaws have been flouted

Dues-paying members — now called “registered participants,” some 100,000 of them — have no inherent right to attend meetings.

There is no feedback mechanism, with none of the 27 voting members’ emails available for contact on the website. Havaris has ordered an end to the inclusion of discussion details in board minutes, rationalizing, “The detail (registered participants) have is actually the decisions that were made.”

Sport Canada allots EC about $1 million a year, in part “to advance Canadian interests, values and ethics in sport at home and abroad.”

But it’s clear that even many stakeholders now believe EC is an organizational stable begging for a forensic mucking-out. Perhaps someone at Sport Canada should grab the first regulatorily admissible shovel available and begin the process.