Controversial Boxing Canada director resigns
Boxing Canada high performance director Daniel Trepanier, whose leadership was criticized by current and former boxers, coaches, officials and provincial bodies in an open letter on Wednesday, has resigned.
Boxing Canada issued a statement Sunday, saying the board of directors accepted his resignation and will consult with provincial organizations to strike a search committee that will be tasked with finding Trepanier's replacement.
The statement also said the board held emergency meetings this weekend “to discuss how to further improve the transparency and governance.”
The open letter, which now has at least 200 signatories, detailed what the authors called a “toxic culture of fear and silence,” much of it attributed to what they called Trepanier's “authoritarian” leadership.
“Many athletes feel they have suffered physical abuse, psychological abuse, and neglect by the organization because of their failure to address these issues,” the open letter said. “Repeated attempts have been made to bring these issues to light, and they have been ignored or dismissed. For example, last year, a comprehensive collection of the experiences of Boxing Canada's athletes was submitted to the board of directors in the form of a confidential memorandum. No formal investigation was launched to look into allegations.”
On Sunday, the release from Boxing Canada went on to detail the organization's commitment to recent measures, including the establishment of a high-performance advisory group to ensure transparency in high-performance decisions, including team selection; mandatory safe sport training for all coaches and staff in the high-performance program; as well as the separation of the high performance director role from coaching responsibilities; and the creation of a national panel of experts to select the 2022-23 national team.
The board also decided to expedite the work being done by a third-party expert who is conducting a culture review of the high-performance program.
“This work is currently underway and will be accelerated over the course (of ) the coming months in conjunction with the selection our new national team,” the statement Sunday said.
The directors also took the opportunity to slam the International Boxing Association, whose secretary-general said it was opening an ethics review of Boxing Canada, given the allegations noted in the open letter. The release mentioned that the International Olympic Committee “officially took over the boxing qualification and competition of the 2021 Tokyo Olympic boxing tournament after excluding the IBA. As such, Boxing Canada does not believe that the IBA has the credibility to lead an ethics review until it has resolved its own internal affairs and reinstated by the IOC.”