Canada’s New Sports Minister Backs Equal Pay For Women’s Football Team

Summary

• Carla Qualtrough replaced Pascale St-Onge as the new Sports Minister
• Qualtrough flew to Melbourne, Australia to support the women’s football team at the FIFA World Cup
• Qualtrough says she is 110 percent in favour of equal pay for women footballers

Canada now has a new sports minister as former Paralympic swimmer Carla Qualtrough has taken over the role from Pascale St-Onge. She recently flew to Melbourne, Australia to support Canada’s women’s football team who are playing at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Qualtrough Gives Her Full Support For Equal Pay

The women’s football team and Canada Soccer have not been on the same page regarding their equal rights and equal pay campaign but things have improved recently. Canada Soccer and the women’s team signed an interim agreement last week which they had negotiated from March that finalized their World Cup prize money distribution and their total compensation for 2023.

The team released a statement last week and said that they would continue to negotiate with Canada Soccer going forward as they were still not happy with the interim deal and some of the choices they were forced to make!

Qualtrough met with the media to let them know her thoughts and plans going forward as the new Sports Minister. She said she knew that women soccer players had fought hard for equal rights and confirmed that she was 110% behind them and fully backed their efforts to get equal pay.

In a statement, Qualtrough said

My background is as a human rights lawyer, so you’re never going to hear me say anything but pay equity, equal pay for work of equal value. Our women deserve equal opportunities as our men and we’re going to make sure they have it.

This is not the first time that Qualtrough has served as Sports Minister as she held the post from 2015 to 2017. Qualtrough said that she would continue to support the efforts made by St-Onge and address key issues including establishing a formal process to support abuse and offer better protection and support to all Canadian athletes. 

Canada Must Win Game Against Australia 

Canada will face co-hosts Australia on July 31 in a must win game for both teams at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. The winner will advance to the play-offs while the losers will exit the tournament.