Governing through narrative: rethinking EDI and Indigeneity in Canadian sport policy

Canadian National Sport Organisations (NSOs) have increasingly adopted equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) policies as markers of ethical governance. Yet little attention has been paid to how these policies understand Indigeneity within a settler colonial context. This study examines 21 publicly available EDI policies from 19 federally funded Canadian NSOs to analyse how Indigenous peoples are represented across 5 dimensions: discourse, knowledge, relationships, political recognition, and governance. Drawing on critical policy analysis informed by settler colonial theory, we show that while Indigenous peoples are routinely acknowledged within organisational commitments to inclusion, they are rarely recognised as rights-bearing peoples with distinct political authority or jurisdiction. Instead, they are incorporated into broad administrative categories that obscure Indigenous histories, governance relationships, and nationhood. Across all 5 dimensions, the policies privilege recognition and participation over the redistribution of authority and shared governance. These findings suggest that EDI policies function less as mechanisms of structural transformation than as organisational narratives that stabilise existing institutional arrangements. The discussion argues that advancing reconciliation in sport will require moving beyond inclusion towards governance approaches grounded in Indigenous rights, jurisdiction, and shared authority, while also developing the critical theoretical capacity needed to interpret competing legal, political, and institutional responsibilities.