On Friday, April 4th representatives from each of the nine provincially-recognized combative Provincial Sport Organizations (PSOs) attended a meeting chaired by Jean Lam, the Assistant Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Health Promotion. The organizations invited were the following:

Boxing Ontario
Kick Boxing Ontario
Wushu Ontario
Judo Ontario
Kendo Ontario
Karate Ontario
Canadian Amateur Muay Thai Association - Ontario, Ontario Tae Kwondo Association
Ontario Jiu-Jitsu Association

At that meeting new measures intended to strengthen the safety standards at amateur combative events sanctioned by all of the combative PSOs were introduced.

The government shares a commitment with all PSOs to ensure that their athletes are training and competing in the safest possible circumstances and each PSO that has received formal recognition status from the Province of Ontario is required to ensure that appropriate safety standards are applied at each competition held under the auspices of a recognized PSO. The safety aspects that relate to the amateur combative sports are particularly important, as those sports feature a high degree of physical contact and the PSOs that govern these sports must be vigilant in setting appropriate safety standards and ensuring that they are applied at all levels of amateur competition.

Ken Hayashi, an employee of the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services, will be conducting random safety checks of competitions that have been sanctioned by recognized amateur combative PSOs in Ontario. Mr. Hayashi has a great deal of experience in working with combative sports and is familiar with combative sport rules. We are confident that his involvement at amateur combative sport events will strengthen the capacity of the combatant organizations to apply and monitor their sport's safety rules. This will allow both the Ministry and the combative sport organizations to achieve the key overriding objective that we all share - to protect the safety of Ontario's amateur athletes.

Barbara Lyon-Stewart, a MHP Sport Consultant, has been assigned to work with the combative PSOs on this initiative. If you have any questions about this program please feel to contact her at 416-314-3755 or Barbara.lyon-stewart@ontario.ca.

Sincerely,

Anita Comella
Manager of the Sport Unit