(Reuters) – Rosemarie Aquilina, the American judge who sentenced disgraced USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, has called for an independent inquiry into sports across Canada amid widespread allegations of harassment, abuse and bullying.

Aquilina, who testified on Monday at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, said all athletes deserved immediate and meaningful action and accountability and that could happen only with an independent judicial investigation.

“When will Canada hear its children and take this meaningful action to protect them from the pain, suffering and trauma they suffer in sport?” said Aquilina. “Canada should be celebrating and honoring the excellence of Canadian athletes and their well-being, not profiting from their abuse.

“Athletes have the absolute right to expect safe, positive, healthy training without physical and emotional abuse and the current culture allows aggressive coaches who overstep, blur lines and abuse children.”

Canada has been rocked by scandals across many sports as several athletes have testified at parliamentary committees over the past year, sharing stories about the physical and mental abuse they endured at the hands of coaches and other officials.

Sport Minister Pascale St-Onge announced a series of reforms in May aimed at holding Canada’s national sport organizations accountable, but the many who have been calling for a national inquiry for months said the measures did not go far enough.

Aquilina also said that if Canada wanted to protect the integrity of sport it needed to protect both the sport and the players.

“Remember, all athletes begin as children and what’s happening now in sport is that they are suffering a lifetime of abuse that has become normalised in sports,” said Aquilina.

“And allowing abuse in sports is allowing and condoning child abuse. It is the murdering of the soul of the athlete who pays the price for the rest of their lives while everyone else profits.”

In January 2018, Aquilina famously sent Nassar to jail for up to 175 years for sexually abusing young female gymnasts who were entrusted to his care.

Nassar was sentenced followed an extraordinary week-long hearing in which 160 of his victims, most of whom were minors at the time they were abused, unflinchingly told their stories.

The outspoken Aquilina gained national attention for her handling of Nassar’s sentencing hearing and has since used her platform to help to give survivors a voice and restore their personal power.

(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto; editing by Clare Fallon)

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