THE PROVINCIAL LACROSSE ASSOCIATIONS ARE STONE COLD DEAD
by Pierre Filion pierrefilion@bell.net
The arrival of ICE (Imposed Commissioners’ Expedition) and the presentation of the 2026-27 Lacrosse Canada budget reveal one thing with vivid clarity; the provinces are just simply on their dying beds. Lacrosse Canada is killing them slowly and softly.
Let’s start with the 2026-27 budget (from April 2026 to March 2027). It’s on Lacrosse Canada’s website if you manage to find it. It was placed there a few days ago without any form of notice to the members. It’s there; it’s revealing; just try to find it.
It’s a balanced budget as always. But past budgets have not always ended up ‘’balanced’’;
2022-23; a budget of 1,737,088$ with a 308,397$ surplus
2023-24; a budget of 1,844,302$ with a 194,749$ deficit
2024-25; a budget of 2,510,392$ with an 805,155$ deficit
2025-26; a budget of 2,426,884$; the fiscal year ends March 31st 2026; no information is available at this time and no one knows what to expect;
2026-27; a budget of 4,143,675$.
The revenues in 2026-27 are derived from the following sources:
The members; 2,161,314$; 52.1% (clinics, meetings, memberships, transfers and national championships)
Sport Canada: 1,265,162$; 30.5%
National Teams and Developmental programs: 542,700$; 13%
Sponsors and donations: 174,500$; 4.2%
The expenses are ‘’invested’’ in the following areas:
Administration and staff: 1,729,379$; 41.7%
National Teams: 1,610,707$; 38.8%
The members (meetings, national championships and projects): 803,589$; 19.3%
Very roughly, but very roughly, with all intentions of being rough, one can easily come to the conclusion that the members generate 52.1% of the budget and only receive 19.3% of the expenses. There is a certain imbalance here (!) which obviously generates the following question:
WHAT’S IN IT FOR THE PROVINCES?
The provinces gallantly pay up and are offered the services that keep them happy: a national office, in person meetings, transfers, coaching and officiating certification and national championships (very costly national championships if I dare say). That’s it. That is all there is.
In a defiant nutshell the national association has a costly staff who toys around with its new jewel, the National Teams, and who tolerates the members but benefits from them when they pay up.
The provinces have lost, in the last years, numerous areas of investment into the national association. Gone are the sectors and the provinces’ leadership into the future of the game; gone are the committees created to monitor different areas of the game; gone is the input into the production of the association’s strategic plan now reserved to the very few enlighten ones; gone is the political influence of the members’ council; gone is the voting input into the financial aspects of the association’s budgets.
The provinces are stone cold dead; they are Lacrosse Canada’s servants; silent branches at best.
What remains is three functional associations (Ontario, BC and Alberta representing 42,645 registered players in 2025- 80.4% of the total LC membership); five struggling associations (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Québec, Manitoba and Saskatchewan together showing 8,277 registered players who represent 15.6% of national membership); and three eternally marginal associations (FNLA, NFLD and PEI with their very limited number of players: 551 players; 1% of the national membership). That is the state of the game in Canada. Who are we kidding when we read that Lacrosse Canada ‘’is committed to the promotion, development and preservation of the sport at all levels’’.
What also remains from the 2026-27 budget is that Lacrosse Canada is in NO WAY concerned with the development of the game and relishes into self-admiration and childish pride for ‘’our very successful National teams’’ made up of players emerging from 3 provinces in Canada. The 2026-27 budget does not have one single dollar invested in the development of the game. And that is a fact.
What mostly remains is this newly surging ICE (Imposed Commissioners Expedition) created to ‘’SUPERVISE’’ the provinces and ‘’to oversee all provincial matters within their respective areas of the game’’.
Not one provincial association requested the presence of ICE supervisors; this is an imposition from the national association, a clear surge into provincial affairs and the establishment of self as a non-requested father figure who knows best.
But mostly it’s a destruction of the democratic process as we have known it. The usual and recognized process calls for the National Association to REPORT to its members; the provincial associations REPORT to their own members (provincial leagues and local associations). It’s not the other way around. But now every indication is that we have left the field of democratic processes and are led by an authoritarian association whose goal is ‘’to strengthen governance by providing consistent leadership and oversight’’. And all this is paid for by the members who have never solicited oversight from Lacrosse Canada and who have, for decades, managed to govern the game provincially as their mission states.
Lacrosse Canada in July 2025 indicated that it was looking for 4 national commissioners and 4 RICs in charge for SRA, SRB, JRA and JRB leagues active under provincial jurisdictions. Those enlighten inspectors and imposed supervisors were to start working on October 1st 2025 and were to be paid 7500$ each for their expeditions and intrusions into provincial matters.
On January 28th 2026 Lacrosse Canada surprised everyone by announcing that it had ‘’selected’’ 5 national commissioners and 9 RICs in charge; some had to apply for the job while others were somehow selected without any formal posts indicating that they could apply for the positions. How shady can all this be? How did the selected people even know that the positions were open? Who are you kidding with your secretly selected imposed police officers ‘’supervising’’ members who have never ever solicited any form of supervision?
So now we have a national commissioner for women’s U22 but no data has ever indicated how many females play box lacrosse; we have an RIC for men’s field, women’s field, men’s sixes and women’s sixes. In 2025 there were 1,417 registered players (male and female) in Sixes active in four provinces (Ontario; 1031 members; Québec 173 members and Manitoba 108 members and NB 105). Wow…those RICs will be very active trying to find out where those Sixes leagues are playing!!!
And forget not that we have two National Teams in Sixes and that we will spend 656,174$ to support our two National Teams. Go to the budget and you’ll see exactly that. What you won’t see is how the money will be spent, in which activities, where and at what cost.
656,174$ for 24 players and a few hangers on.
For the time being let’s wait and see the results of Lacrosse Canada’s 2025-26 financial statement; it will help us appreciate the quality of Lacrosse Canada’s management of the members’ monies.
At this time also would we not all love to see the new president come out and explain to the members what the hell is going on but more specifically:
Why is there nothing in the budget to increase the number of lacrosse players in Canada?
Why is there nothing in the budget to endeavor to organizationally benefit from the 2028 Olympic Games?
How did Lacrosse Canada manage to create an 805,155$ DEFICIT in the 2024-25 fiscal year?
Where is Lacrosse Canada’s legitimacy when it imposes ‘’oversight’’ measures (ICE) on its members?
Why were 1 National commissioner and 5 RICs selected for positions never called for on Lacrosse Canada’s website while others had to apply and follow due process?
What can Lacrosse Canada do to help struggling provinces acquire credibility, become functional, develop and increase the number of their registered players?
Governance at the provincial level is just as much to blame for failures in lacrosse as the national governing body. Instead of attempting to work together and advocating for the players, both sides bleed their memberships dry. LC bleed MAs, MAs bleed membership.
ReplyDeletePart of the solution comes from an increased involvement of the members within their associations; it is of utmost importance that leaders are held accountable but it is also important that members act as members (not just consumers) and ask questions.
DeleteLacrosse Canada has repeatedly stated in meetings that grassroots development is not their responsibility — that their focus is high performance and national teams. Yet every other major sport in Canada understands that success at the top is built from the ground up. Curling invests in programs like Rocks & Rings. Hockey has countless national grassroots initiatives. Baseball runs the Rally Cap program coast-to-coast. The pattern is clear: national bodies support the base of their sport because that is where future athletes, coaches, officials, and volunteers come from.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, Member Associations are expected to “grow the game” largely on their own, despite the National Sport Organization being mandated to support them. Many Lacrosse Canada initiatives now mirror programs provinces have been running for years — from development pathways to identification camps — yet they are often created without meaningful collaboration with the provinces already doing the work.
Saskatchewan hosted the only PLL camp in the country for three years. When they sought support to bring in Team Canada athletes, Lacrosse Canada declined, not even asking the athletes if they wanted to be involved … which most of them would have loved to. In provinces like Ontario and BC, where camps already exist and participation is strong, Lacrosse Canada has instead scheduled competing programs rather than partnering with local leaders.
This approach fragments the sport, duplicates effort, and weakens the very system that produces national-team athletes. Rather than work with the groups with feet on the ground they take their work, pass it on as their own, and provide no support because they didn’t think of it first. They could have learned from MA’s in these programs, what worked, what didn’t, instead pushed them aside and now create a “supervision” group. Where in the “supervision” group monitoring Lacrosse Canada? They don’t follow their own rules, regulations and governance on a good day but want to monitor other groups?
Until Lacrosse Canada recognizes that Member Associations are not just stakeholders but the foundation of the sport — and begins treating them as true partners in planning, investment, and decision-making — the gap between national ambition and grassroots reality will continue to grow. Look at medal counts the past couple championships, strong national teams are not built in isolation; they are built in rinks, and fields across the country. Ignoring that reality doesn’t strengthen the sport — it holds it back.