Lacrosse Canada Website

LET’S LOOK AT LACROSSE CANADA’S WEBSITE

A National Association’s website is the association’s privileged tool to inform and educate its members and the general public on the events and positive or negative happenings within the corporation. Lacrosse Canada’s website is at www.lacrosse.ca It’s worth looking at it to see if it is informative and educational.

The first obvious element which jumps at anyone looking seriously at the website is in the relationship with the number of participants in lacrosse. Lacrosse Canada NEVER reports on the number of its paying registered participants. The official and accurate number of participants is reported to the provinces at the annual meeting (and only at the annual meeting once a year). That number in 2024 was of 51,131. That number was never reported to the readers on the website. One begs to ask, very simply, why is it that a National Association hides the number of its members to the members themselves and also to the general public. Why does a democratic association fail, year in and year out, year after year, to issue the official number of its members?

Rather than issuing a clear and accurate number of registered participants Lacrosse Canada sinks into falsehoods and contradictions. In every post Lacrosse Canada suggests that its member associations ‘’represent’’ about 85,000 participants. In January 2025 the Association, in a post soliciting candidates for the position of manager of finance and revenues, surprisingly informed the readers that the Association was made up of 10 provincial associations and one Indigenous association ‘’representing’’ over 70,000 participants. Ten lines down it indicated IN THE SAME POST ON THE SAME DAY (January 7^th 2025) that the association was representing 85,000 participants. With no lack of humour the post also indicated that ‘’the Association was committed to increasing participation’’. Does the writer even read his own writing before posting it on a national website?

Now, get serious, which is it: 51,131? 70,000? Or 85,000? Real people are reading this delirious stuff and obviously come to the unavoidable conclusion that when a National Association screws around with the number of its members it is shooting itself in the foot and begging that we all take a long look at what else could be frivolous or blatantly false within the Association. Yet Lacrosse Canada, with a straight face, claims to act with accountability operating with integrity and transparency.

The second element is in the discretion (!) surrounding relevant and important information emerging from the Association. Let’s use the 2025-2028 strategic plan as an example. Nowhere in the ‘’news section’’ on the website were the readers informed that ‘’their’’ vibrant Association had produced its strategic plan for the coming years. One has to look real hard before finding out that there is a plan and that it is somewhere on the website. But everyone knows, because it’s posted on page one, that Lacrosse Canada is looking for a volunteer to manage the female National Team…or volunteer therapists to help the National Teams. But the strategic plan, which will define where the Association is going and what it wants to achieve with the members’ money, nothing.

And surprisingly the Association’s strategic plan does not appear either on the provinces’ websites. Quite surprising for a National Association aiming at ‘’igniting a nationwide passion for the game, cultivating a vibrant and inclusive lacrosse community’’…and claiming to ‘’achieve more working together in a climate of collaboration and trust’’.

This is not accidental; this is not a ‘’oops moment’’; this is a voluntary decision not to publicize and promote the strategic plan…Some way to keep a closed shop closed!

The same discretion surrounds the 2025-26 budget. Just try to find it on the website knowing full well that there never was a post informing the readers that the budget was on the website; somewhere. It become obvious that the relevant information pertaining to the game is discretely placed on the website for very few to locate. Also remember there never was one single post informing the members and readers that Lacrosse Canada had moved its National Office from Ottawa to Oshawa and mostly sharing with the readers the huge advantages supporting such a move!!!

The third element is in the total absence of information pertaining to the provinces. Everything deals with the National Association and the National Teams as if the provinces were inexistent and mostly, highly irrelevant.

-Alberta has grown and developed tremendously in the last 30 years; not one post of its admirable growth appears on the website.

-Manitoba, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have increased their membership every year in the last three years; that growth is ignored.

-Newfoundland has indicated 0 membership in 2022, 100 in 2023 and 0 again in 2024 and no one wants to know what has happened.

-A research conducted by Lacrosse Canada indicated last year that there were hundreds of Canadian females (90% of them from Ontario) playing field lacrosse in the NCAA; yet nowhere does Lacrosse Canada explain all that was done by the Ontario Lacrosse Association to set up and organize this very positive endeavor. That information might have helped other provincial associations…

It seems that the provinces are a nuisance and never a source of interest when time comes to see and mostly explain growth or failure. Remember, the strategic plan claims that ‘’we achieve more working together in a climate of collaboration and trust’’…

The fourth element borders on despisal and incompetence; the French website is a total joke and a huge embarrassment to everyone connected with Lacrosse Canada. But first let’s make sure we understand Lacrosse Canada’s policies concerning bilingualism in this country. They are expressed clearly in the Operation’s Manual, article 3.3.

‘’Lacrosse Canada is committed to the promotion and use of Canada’s two Official languages in the delivery of its services, programs and events;’’
‘’Lacrosse Canada recognizes Canada’s linguistic duality and recognizes that the English and French languages have equal status in Canada;’’
‘’Lacrosse Canada ensures equivalent content and equal language quality in both Official languages;’’
‘’All official documents relating to the governance of Lacrosse Canada shall be provided in both Official languages.’’

Now, enough poetry, on with reality.

If you really have free time go to the French website and here’s what you’ll discover:

The National Office, which has moved to Oshawa months ago, is still identified as being in Ottawa; now why is that?
The list of Board members, elected in late November, does not reflect the list of the actual Board members; the English website identifies those who were elected at the November 2024 election; those on the French website indicate the names of those who were there before the elections; the English website identifies 9 Board members while the French site identifies 11; Paul Magnan is still VP administration; Bryan Baxter is still in charge of National development; Kevin Sandy is still the Indigenous delegate while Leslie Hawke is still athlete director; Sean O’Callaghan is still a happy Board member; the new Board members elected in November simply don’t exist in the French website…and they don’t care because they have not looked at the French website;
The 2025-2028 Strategic Plan appears nowhere in the French website; neither do the 2025-26 budget and the minutes of past Board meetings; now why is that?
The 2025 Calendar of Events is in English only;
Four staff members are presented with a gender different from their own; Mrs Terry Rayner is ‘’directrice générale’’; Mr Wendy Dobbin is ‘’directeur des hautes performances’’; Mr Ashley Bull is ‘’coordonnateur de la haute performance’’; Mrs Kealan Pilon introduces herself as ‘’directrice des communications’’; Josh Dawick and Samantha McKenzie are presented only in English. Not one of the staff members has asked that their gender be identified properly on the French website because they simply never had a look at the French website! Who, from the Board and staff, looks at the French website anyway. Anyone who has, with enthusiasm, taken High School French knows there is a difference between ‘’un directeur’’ and ‘’une directrice’’.

No need to carry on; we all get the picture. There is a huge distance between the official policies and what goes on in French at Lacrosse Canada.

A review of the website should be an urgent concern for the Board members if they wish that their policies be upheld.

Let’s look at it now before Sport Canada starts asking very legitimate and embarrassing questions.