Estimated to be worth around £4 billion ($4.82 billion/€4.5 billion), the industry in Canada has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, with sport events postponed or cancelled during a period of restrictions on movement.

The taskforce includes representatives from sporting event destinations, national sporting organisations, venues and industry suppliers.

There is not currently a national timeline for sport's return in Canada and there have been more than 73,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country, resulting in the deaths of in excess of 5,400 people.

"Sport tourism serves as a significant economic driver at the community level, particularly with small businesses that depend heavily on the traffic generated by sport events," CSTA chief executive Rick Traer said.

"The recovery of our industry will be directly related to our ability to provide a safe, secure and healthy environment at over 200,000 sport events that occur in communities across Canada annually."

The objectives of the taskforce include accessing the most relevant information regarding both the COVID-19 outlook in Canada and hosting events amid the pandemic.

It will also look to assess the health of sport tourism in Canada, speak to stakeholders about their readiness to host events again and look into Government funding channels to develop a recovery programme.

Once that has happened, the taskforce will move from a recovery phase to a resiliency phase, protecting those events that have been given the green light to go ahead.

A total of 22 people make up the taskforce, include Dean McIntosh from Hockey Canada and Kerry MacDonald from Volleyball Canada.

Ex-CSTA President Grant MacDonald will serve as chairman, with the first meeting scheduled for May 19.