DEMOCRATIC CONCERNS

DEMOCRATIC CONCERNS AGAIN AND AGAIN…

One thing is sure, changes are happening at Lacrosse Canada and they are happening fast and with significant costs to support the changes. We are seeing a smooth takeover of the Association and cannot evaluate the 2025 Lacrosse Canada against Lacrosse Canada of the 2000 era…or even before.

Long gone are the days of a National Association with one staff and with National Teams handled, financed and managed under contract by ‘’outside’’ passionate volunteers who would go at it once and then realize that the mandate was far too demanding. And that the money was not available. That is not happening anymore because National Teams are now a priority in Oshawa.

We now have a national association, moving from Ottawa to Oshawa, who has turned over the reins to a new Executive Director who is accountable to a new Board of Directors who, in turn, is accountable to the membership. We also have a national association who collects more money from the membership than it ever had done in the past; it also receives, because of its fragile Olympic status, more grants from the feds than it ever received. And it has a ten men staff most of whom are new to the Association.

Changes are happening everywhere within the Association and those changes are creating new challenges and obviously new concerns for those who have taken over leadership positions within Lacrosse Canada.

One of the challenges is to remain faithful to the values of the Association as expressed on the association’s website:

‘’We operate with integrity and TRANSPARENCY accepting responsibility for outcomes and results’’, and ‘’We achieve more working together in a climate of collaboration and trust’’…

Values are the ethical pillars of any association but sadly they are often jotted down on paper to give credibility to a highly needed strategic plan and forgotten as we go along with the daily tasks of running a national association and solving problems and issues.

And when significant problems arise and are of public knowledge the leaders then realize that they have leaned away from what were the values of the Association. And everybody is saddened but once that is said and done the leaders still go on doing what they did in the past and the problems remain. How could they not?

Let’s look at TRANSPARENCY and see where Lacrosse Canada could improve its performance and mostly remain true to the values professed as highly significant:

Lacrosse Canada has failed to abide by Sport Canada’ s ‘’2021 directive’’ indicating that minutes of the Board of Directors’ meetings must be posted on the Association’s website.
Lacrosse Canada’s directive was in support of the professed value of transparency. Minutes of meetings should be available to the membership if only to know of the decisions taken and their consequences on the development and management of the game. Minutes of meetings help the membership, within an association, to asses the quality of the Board members’ work and the level of their discussions. It would give the members and mostly the voting members an opportunity to evaluate their elected leaders and their control over the Association for which they are legally responsible.
There are no valid reasons to deprive the membership of the minutes of Board meetings. Not publishing the minutes is a voluntary decision to deprive the members of the relevant and public information they need in order to be part of a significant and ‘’vibrant’’ association.
Lacrosse Canada has not informed the members of the details of the expenses for the National Teams in 2025-26. All that the members know of the budget approved by the Board on December 8^th (in a 20 minutes meeting) is that the total expenses for the National Teams will be of 1,078,085$. That’s it.
Remember: ‘’We operate with transparency’’…
43% of Lacrosse Canada’s budget will be spent on the National Teams and no one in Canada knows what the budgets will be for each of the two National Teams going to Asia in 2025 and where the 1,078,085$ will be spent.
But everyone knows from the budget that Lacrosse Canada will spend 1,000$ on postage and 2,500$ on domestic development; accurate assessment for marginal expenses but for the National Teams, nothing. Lacrosse Canada is toying with the members
It will not be difficult for the managers of the National Teams not to declare a deficit; because when there is no budget there can be no deficit.
Some might even hear someone say: ‘’Go out in Asia honey, spend what you need, we’ll have your back’’.
Lacrosse Canada is mocking the members and fooling around with its one-million-dollar budget.
There are no good reasons to deprive the paying membership of the information pertaining to the National Teams’ expenses in 2025-26. Not sharing that relevant information with the members is a voluntary decision to deprive the members and the public. But mostly it makes the administrators exempt from any form of credible evaluation and concentrates the information in very few hands. As if it was the management’s money!!
No transparency here.
Lacrosse Canada has voluntarily shaded the information coming from its recent semi-annual meeting. The website says nothing of the meeting as if it never happened, as if the members did not show up with passion and dedication, with ideas and problems to solve. The semi-annual meeting is a ‘’live’’ happening, not a ZOOM meeting where everyone is uncomfortable with the technology and the process. The members show up and wish to express themselves and be heard.
The only report coming out of this meeting was posted in Lacrosse Canada’s May newsletter and cynically said: ‘’ The gathering brought together LC’s staff, board members and all member associations for a productive few days of meaningful dialogue and collaboration. The focus was clear: how we can work together to move the game forward across the country’’.
Wow! No excess in transparency here is there?
The communiqué could have been written days before the meeting. Nothing specific on the ideas discussed, the plans studied, the projects imagined, the disagreements, the debates, etc! Nothing but ‘’It was a good meeting’’.
This is cynically ridiculous and slightly childish; it mocks the members and takes them away from content to have them concentrate on dreams and hopes.
Lacrosse Canada is surely bringing forward many changes and is expressing its leadership and control over the members who are progressively sidelined and deprived of significant information.
It is moving fast and doing so many things that it will be difficult for the members to remain abreast of the actions and challenges facing Lacrosse Canada.
LC is strategically managing its information in a way to divert the members attentions from the facts that would help them be active within a ‘’vibrant’’ association. The members are being chloroformed.
At this time many do not know whether to be in awe of LC’s efforts or sick with fear that the end result will be an implosion that puts LC into bankruptcy.
One thing we know for sure is that Lacrosse Canada, in the matters mentioned above, is quickly shading away from the values it professes. Ans that is a problem now.
It’s a problem that only the members can solve if only they see the problem.