Smith, Lawless vie to succeed Aubut as president of COC
The battle to succeed Marcel Aubut as president of the Canadian Olympic Committee is set for resolution this weekend in Montreal.
The 80 voting members of the COC’s session will decide Sunday whether Tricia Smith or Peter Lawless will lead Canada into the 2016 Rio Olympics and finish out Aubut’s term, which runs through the spring of 2017.
Smith and Lawless are both British Columbia lawyers with extensive experience in amateur sport.
A four-time Olympian in rowing, Smith took over the leadership on an interim basis last month after Aubut resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment. A COC coworker complained about Aubut’s alleged behaviour, which sparked several other women to come forward with their own allegations.
Once Aubut resigned, the coworker withdrew her formal complaint, but a third-party investigation continues into the other allegations.
“I will re-establish the ethics and values of the COC,” Smith pledged on her campaign website. “I will guide our organization to a culture of inclusivity, collaboration and unified focus, a culture that will renew the COC’s place of honour among its partners.”
Smith is backed by several big names in the Olympic movement, including Dick Pound, former president of the World Anti Doping Agency; John Furlong, former chief executive officer of VANOC; and four-time Olympian Silken Laumann.
In his online campaign material, Lawless, a COC vice-president perhaps best known for coaching Michelle Stilwell to the Paralympic podium at the 2012 London Games, pledges to return the COC’s focus to sport. To that end, he wants to improve strained relations with national sports organizations, some of whom were forced to slash their developmental teams due to lack of funding.
“We will work co-operatively with our partners,” Lawless wrote. “We have not been the leaders of sport we are expected to be.”