The Deep Cove Rowing Club believes that all rowers, coaches, volunteers, directors, other members of the club and participants in the larger rowing community should be able to participate in rowing without experiencing any form of abuse, harassment or discrimination. Maltreatment of any type is unacceptable. It is a shared responsibility of all members of the club to ensure that anybody can participate in the sport of rowing without experiencing maltreatment. These beliefs and responsibilities are codified in a Safe Sport policy. The Deep Cove Rowing Club is currently in the process of establishing a Safe Sport policy for the club.
Rowing Canada established a Safe Sport Policy in 2022. For the sake of cross Canada uniformity, Rowing Canada has directed all member organizations to adopt the Rowing Canada policy verbatim.
The Deep Cove Rowing Club has reviewed the Rowing Canada Safe Sport policy in detail. Numerous flaws and omissions were identified, both minor and serious. The policy was clearly drafted without understanding or consideration of the typical local rowing club environment. As a single nationwide policy, it can not take into account any unique circumstances affecting the Deep Cove Rowing Club. The result is a policy that will be ineffective in safeguarding rowers and other members of the Deep Cove Rowing Club. The club does not believe it is possible to adopt the Rowing Canada policy verbatim. We believe that a significant rewrite is required before the policy would be suitable for our club to use.
US Rowing has taken a different approach that we believe will be successful. US Rowing requires that local clubs adopt a comprehensive Safe Sport policy. US Rowing has provided a template policy. Local clubs can choose to adopt the template policy, modify it as needed or write their own policy. A club's policy must accept the jurisdictional role of the US Center for SafeSport.
The Deep Cove Rowing Club is currently in the process of writing its own Safe Sport policy that tries to adhere to the spirit and desire for harmony with the Rowing Canada Safe Sport policy. The policy will correct the identified issues and is intended to be effective in the local club environment, and more specifically, the Deep Cove Rowing Club environment. Until our own policy is ready for adoption, the club will try to follow the Rowing Canada Safe Sport policy as best we can, but there are some aspects of the Rowing Canada Safe Sport policy that are not feasible to adopt or can't be adopted exactly as worded in the policy. If you have questions about this, please contact the club's Safe Sport lead (currently Ron Westfall) at safesport@deepcoverowingclub.com, a member of the board of directors or your coach according to who you feel comfortable talking to.
If you believe that you have been subjected to maltreatment, do not wait until a homegrown policy has been adopted. Gather as much detailed information as possible about the incident. Submit a complaint to any director of the club that you feel comfortable approaching. The directors are listed on the club web site. If you do not feel that the club is capable of responding properly to your complaint or is not responding in a timely manner, submit the complaint to Rowing Canada's independent third party as described in the File a Complaint section of the Rowing Canada Safe Sport web page. Refer to the Rowing Canada Safe Sport policy for details.