Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport changes name to Sport Integrity Canada

The Canadian Center for Integrity in Sport will change its name to Sport Integrity Canada in January to reflect its increased responsibilities, its board chairman said.

The CCES, which has been the country's domestic doping watchdog for more than two decades and more recently monitored sports betting manipulation, was added to its mandate by previous federal sports minister Carla Qualtrough this year.

From 1 April, the center took over the management and investigation of complaints and reports of abuse and mistreatment in sport, as well as the maintenance of the government's register of people suspended or subject to provisional sanctions, from the now defunct Office of the Sports Integrity Commissioner (OSIC).

“As part of this new mandate, we have decided to review not only our strategic plan, but also our organizational approach and structure,” Jocelyn Downey, the center's board chair, said in a statement Tuesday.

“Our goal is to ensure that the organization is up to the task and well equipped to fulfill its role as the sports integrity body in Canada.

“This change reflects our evolution over the past few years as an independent sports integrity agency.”

The CCES faces the same jurisdictional restrictions as the OSIC, as only sports organizations that receive federal funding fall under its umbrella, leaving provincial, territorial, university and club sports unprotected.

Bringing these levels of sport to the center is an option, but requires funding, CCES safe sport executive director Signy Arnason said earlier this year.

One of the reasons Qualtrough gave for moving from OSIC to CCES was to make the process more independent.

Although CCES receives money from the federal government, the government does not have the power to select or elect its board.

But the center is also not covered by the Access to Information Act, meaning the public cannot request information from it.