:
Good morning, everyone. I call the meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 76 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, September 20, 2022, the committee is meeting to continue its study on safe sport in Canada.
We have a number of witnesses. Four are in front of us, and two are on video conference today.
Myriam Da Silva Rondeau is an Olympian and teacher. We have Rachael Denhollander, attorney and victim advocate. She is on video conference. Ciara McCormack is a whistle-blower and professional soccer player. Andrea Neil is a former Canadian women's national soccer team player and assistant coach. David Wallbridge is a lawyer, and he's on video conference. From Fencing for Change Canada, we have Emily Mason.
For those on video conference—that means Rachael and David—on the bottom of your screen there's a globe for translation. You will get questions in English and French, so act accordingly.
Everyone, we have at least 30 minutes of testimony here this morning.
We'd like to start with Myriam Da Silva Rondeau for five minutes.
Myriam, the floor is now yours.
[Translation]
It's important to understand that in sports, everything happens quickly. Competitions represent points, and points are what lead to being selected for training camps, the national team or even international competitions. They are what makes it possible to reach a classification and move up through the ranks to the very top. Without these points, there's no advancement.
In this process, which looks simple, here's what complicates things:
Athletes who refuse to sign the contract submitted to them can't take part in competitions and don't get any points. The timelines are also short. It can be only a few weeks or even days ahead when you're selected to take part in a competition where points can be earned. The current whistle-blowing mechanisms take months.
So I ask you: if you were in our position, would you blow the whistle on anyone?
Then there's the matter of points and selection. It may look simple from the outside, but everything is governed by often exhaustive and malleable documentation from the federations. In connection with this, I would ask that we table the document I sent to the clerk yesterday evening.
:
Among the documents I sent you I found the summary of Boxing Canada's changing selection criteria from 2011 to 2021. These were approved by the board of directors. Oversight by Sport Canada, when there is any, is substantial. Without any context and a lack of familiarity with the community, it's easy to approve a document without asking any questions.
Once again, when athletes follow the existing mechanisms, it can take several months. In the meantime, the athlete does not take part in any competitions or training camps, and cannot accumulate any points. Like it or not, whistle-blowing is something you have to think about carefully.
There is also the stigmatization that goes along with whistle-blowing and using the existing mechanisms. When a fellow team member and I made a complaint to the federation, it took barely 24 hours for the coaches and athletes to identify us as those who were accusing the high performance director. Needless to say, we felt excluded. The people in power quickly lined up some allies. I believe you now understand why.
After two weeks, my mental health had suffered a great deal: loss of appetite, trouble sleeping, self-mutilation and isolation. The doctor put me and my teammate on sick leave. We could have been sent to a safe place, such as another gym or another club, until the situation had been dealt with, but the president of the federation refused. To receive certification, and financial support from this committee, several federations require total centralization and the rules are strict and inflexible. If we were given permission to decentralize, it would have to be given to others as well. That's what we were told. In the interest of equity, we had to remain inactive until we were prepared to return to this toxic environment.
When we said we wanted to take part in the training camp, our applications were denied, because we had missed too many of the regular training sessions, even though the doctor was in agreement and an accommodation had been requested. This inevitably meant losing our points, which would of course have an impact on our certification and potential selection. I would remind you that all of that was happening at the same time as Sport Solutions was in contact with the federation and the high performance director. It's a lot for an athlete to handle, but that's how things currently work. It's also important to understand that the federation—in my case it was the high performance director—could simply take away my certification in the blink of an eye, as well as any funding, without anyone, even you, having anything to say about it. I could also have complained through various existing mechanisms. Once again, that might take months. So we go for months without any financial resources and that's why we eventually give up.
Under the current system, athletes are responsible for the oversight of their federation. This can cost us dearly, because all reports and actions taken, and any accusations and complaints made within the Canadian sport system can be taken over by each province's own justice system.
:
Thank you, members of Parliament. It is a privilege to be here with all of you today.
Like so many others who have testified at this committee, I am also a survivor of sexual abuse in the athletic community, having been victimized by Dr. Larry Nassar, the former Olympic team physician for our United States women's gymnastics team.
I am also an attorney with a background in public policy. My professional field of expertise is abuse prevention, crisis response and institutional transformation.
I am privileged to educate at our U.S. military academies, medical conferences and law school and bar associations, as well as universities, non-profits, law enforcement agencies and the largest Protestant religious denominations in our country.
Often, when I come in to work with these groups, I'm asked, “What is the most important thing we can do to prevent abuse?”, with the expectation that my response will be some sort of policy change or education program that can take place. However, this is incorrect, because policy changes and education programs are only as good as the motivation and knowledge that accompany them.
If any institution is truly serious about preventing child abuse, the single most important thing it can do is pursue honest and transparent assessments. Far too often, when an abuse crisis occurs—whether it is in the athletic community, the religious world or universities—the response of leadership is to attempt to simply move forward with education and reform. “Let's move our organization into the future.” This is a critical error for two reasons.
First, when harm has occurred, it is the responsibility of the organization and the leadership to aid in the healing. As adults, we know this. We teach our children to accept responsibility for the harm they perpetrate. My four-year-old knows to say “I am sorry that I hit you and that I took your toy. What can I do to help you feel better?”, yet somehow, as we move out of childhood and become leaders in the country, it has become acceptable for leaders who are in charge of the safety of thousands of children and athletes to refuse to acknowledge the massive failures that have led to the life-altering abuse of the innocent who were placed in their protection.
The survivors of every one of these abusers have asked for answers. They have asked for truth and transparency, and they deserve this. This is critical to their own healing process, because the heartbeat of survivors is to know that what happened to them is not going to happen to the next generation.
Second, honest and transparent assessments are critical for child protection, because you cannot fix what you will not accurately diagnose. When the culture that led to these abuses is not thoroughly understood and honestly discussed and diagnosed, education programs are a mere Band-Aid designed to make a gaping wound look palatable. When the policy and structural breakdowns in an organization have not been thoroughly understood, policy reform fails to be effective.
When you, as Canada's leadership, do not have thorough and complete information on and an understanding of which individuals in leadership enabled abuse, turned a blind eye or perpetuated a destructive culture, you will have no ability to discern whether the leadership changes are effective or simply a regime change from one toxic system to the next.
It is more than appropriate for you, as Canada's leaders, to ask how it is possible that GymCan, for example, could select as one of its high-performance leaders a U.S. high-performance coach from my country, who was part of the deeply abusive system that produced my perpetrator, Larry Nassar. Why did complete regime change in USA Gymnastics result in GymCan selecting one of those very same coaches to run its allegedly new and improved program?
It is more than appropriate for you to ask how GymCan can in one breath say it has changed, while in another it refuses to release the alleged investigation clearing Mr. Gallardo of abuse allegations. The survivor who has come forward testified that she was never consulted during this investigation.
It is fitting for you, as Canada's leaders, to ask how GymCan can suggest that true change has taken place after Kyna Fletcher was named as national team lead, when Ms. Fletcher silenced her own athlete who spoke out about the sexual abuse she suffered from a coach who has now been banned for life. Ms. Fletcher testified on behalf of this prolific sexual abuser against the athletes who had risked everything to protect the next generation.
Ms. Fletcher and the victims of David Brubaker literally stood on opposing sides of stopping a pedophile. GymCan looked at those 11 victims of childhood sexual abuse and at the woman defending the abuser, and they said to the woman defending the pedophile, “We pick you.”
It is appropriate to ask how GymCan can profess to prioritize athletes' safety after retaining Lorie Henderson to run their junior national program, despite multiple athletes reporting abuse by Ms. Henderson.
It is absurdity in the highest degree to suggest that there is an understanding of these issues and that anything has changed, when this has taken place. It is fitting that this has come before the heritage committee, because your children are your heritage.
:
My name is Ciara McCormack. I'm a professional soccer player, a whistle-blower and a board member of PFA Canada, the first pro soccer player union in Canada.
As an athlete, I was forced to leave Canada to escape abuse. Today, 16 years later, I live abroad, not feeling safe to stay in Canada, professionally or personally, because of the truth that I have shared.
Online, as I have watched these government hearings and seen countless athletes bravely retraumatize themselves, telling their horrific stories, I can't help but ask myself this: How many more stories will it take for those of you in government to demand a national inquiry and implement real change?
In 2007, I left Canada after reporting abuse by my former Whitecaps and Canadian national team coach, Bob Birarda.
A year later, in 2008, he was fired for sexual misconduct against Canada under-20 national team players, yet inexplicably was allowed by Canada Soccer to continue coaching teenage girls. For 12 years, I and others reported this known predator repeatedly, to no avail.
In February 2019, seeing no other options to get him off the field, I published, in my blog, a story entitled “A Horrific Canadian Soccer Story—The Story No One Wants to Listen To, But Everyone Needs to Hear”. The blog went viral, and victims came forward.
Today Birarda sits in jail, convicted of sex crimes against four former teenage players, over a 20-year period. The last victim was from 2008, the year that the Vancouver Whitecaps and Canada Soccer covered up publicly his departure as a “mutual parting of ways”.
However, the worst of the ordeal was not Birarda's abuse. Rather, it was realizing that for the decade we tried to report Birarda, the silencing we faced wasn't born out of a dysfunctional system, but rather was done with a wilful precision, a system where to play sports in Canada meant and means doing so with a deliberate lack of protection from abuse, as well as the threat of retaliation for speaking out about it.
As I watched a few weeks ago while MPs in this room spoke glowingly to members of Canada's women's national team, I couldn't help but think of Charmaine Hooper. You probably have never heard of her. I bet you didn't know that she was the most decorated player in Canadian soccer in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I bet you also didn't know that in 2006, she and two other players, who together had represented Canada 243 times, didn't show up to a national team game in protest of an abusive national team environment and were thrown off the team. Despite using all of the “proper” resolution channels, including the SDRCC, none of the three ever played for Canada again.
I bet you believe the heroes in Canadian soccer from the last three decades were those scoring goals and winning medals, but I'm here to tell you that the players who deserve your admiration are the ones you've never heard of, the ones who took a brave stand against abusive coaches and administrators with no protection, and lost everything. Their voices and treatment matter equally, if not more than those of the players who stayed silent and played on, and their stories deserve to be told through a national inquiry.
These hearings have outlined rampant conflicts of interest, zero oversight over money, and a massive power imbalance between athletes and the gatekeepers of Canadian sport organizations, causing immense harm. Many of these groups and people have testified or been spoken about during the government hearings in the last few months.
Let me recap some of the learnings, starting with Canadian Soccer Business, a for-profit business that has made a preposterous and secretive 20-year deal with our non-profit NSO, Canada Soccer. The committee is now aware that there is no record in Canada Soccer meeting minutes that this ludicrous deal was ever ratified, and Canada Soccer board members have stated explicitly that they did not sign off on this deal.
We've heard from and about Victor Montagliani. He was found in these hearings to be involved with the above CSB deal. He was also identified in the July 2022 McLaren report to have been directly involved in covering up for a now-convicted sex offender, along with Peter Montopoli, someone who should also be called to answer for his despicable conduct in his time with Canada Soccer. Both continue untouched in their prominent roles at FIFA.
I can't help but wonder this: Will you force us to watch Montopoli and Montagliani take centre stage at the Canadian taxpayer-funded 2026 FIFA World Cup, despite the documented harm they have caused, or will this government step up and take a stand against their behaviour?
Outside soccer, we've heard about for-profit “safe sport” groups such as ITP and Sport Law, operating like wolves in sheep's clothing, that present themselves as a safe place for vulnerable, abused athletes, not revealing that in actuality they are paid by and to protect the interests of sport organizations that have caused these same athletes harm.
Then there's an academic receiving millions in government funding to research safe sport, who, according to a witness who stood before you, attempted to silence him when he came to her with an abuse claim in her role as welfare officer at Gymnastics Canada, an organization riddled with abuse.
There are law firms such as Ruben Thomlinson, displaying zero moral compass, that present their normalized lie to sport abuse victims, such as our group, as doing “independent investigation”, when in reality they're glorified PR jobs with an attorney-client privilege for abusive organizations. Neither fits the definition of either “independent” or an “investigation”. It's a team effort to operate the status quo of harm.
The list goes on and on, so I again ask all of you here today, what will it take for a national inquiry to finally commence, or will this silent complicity by the Canadian government continue?
Those whose egregious actions have been revealed in these committees are hoping that you will forget about their conduct and allow them to retain their money and power, and that in a few short weeks this will all go away. Instead, I'm pleading on behalf of Canadian athletes for you to loudly support a national inquiry, an inquiry that will shine a spotlight on how abuse has been allowed to happen, build a new sports system based on safety, accountability and transparency, and allow people like me to finally feel safe to come home.
Thank you.
I played in four World Cups, was a captain on the national team, and also helped coach Canada in a fifth World Cup, so I bring over 30 years of experience from which to speak.
It's been encouraging to witness these hearings. At the same time, it's been disheartening to watch the responses to your questions and the answers of Canada Soccer. They haven't always been accurate or honest. I know because I was there, deeply involved in the reporting on the Bob Birarda sexual abuse case, the federation's mishandling of finances and its neglect of the women's program. Their communication style is harmful and not trustworthy. This is often the case.
I know that this is how the old boys holding the purse strings of power operate. They deny, deflect and launch a media blitz of misinformation designed to manipulate and defend. It's a pattern of behaviour that I encountered in working with them. They did more to protect themselves and a sexual predator than they ever did to safeguard players.
They responded to a head coach's concerned reports of funding going missing, misleading financial statements and other unethical acts not by investigating and sanctioning the manager involved but by instead promoting him and punishing the women's national team coaches who came forward to report the wrongdoing.
As a monopoly not subject to proper oversight, Canada Soccer operates with unchecked power and control, which has created a culture of exploitation and a lack of accountability. Individuals in power in our federation have taken advantage of this authority. They have promoted their own power, influence and wealth at the cost of the safety, health and human dignity of those they are meant to serve.
This is not surprising, as our leaders are so deeply embedded in FIFA, an organization renowned for its sexism and corruption, but with Canada about to play host to the World Cup, it behooves us to pay attention.
The last time we hosted, we violated our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms by giving women's teams inequitable and dangerous working conditions. What legacy does Canada want to leave this time?
It should alarm our country that the same men, Victor Montagliani and Peter Montopoli, who have done such a deleterious job of running Canada Soccer, are now in positions to oversee our country's hosting of the 2026 World Cup.
The leaders of Canada Soccer have consistently failed to take responsibility. With the Birarda case, we saw their appalling failure to respond to several red flags of abusive behaviour. These went well beyond sexual text messages, despite how Montagliani is trying to misrepresent and excuse himself now. There was sexual and psychological abuse of players on the team by Birarda. One ended up as a key witness in his criminal conviction, but Canada Soccer didn't act to protect the community. They negligently shifted his predatory behaviour on and shrouded the reason for his departure, so he was back coaching vulnerable girls just weeks later.
It took players enduring a three-year criminal justice process to get Birarda out of coaching, and their purpose was to protect others. Canada Soccer should have done that in a day, with one sound decision.
Business-wise, Canada Soccer clearly lacks acumen, transparency and accountability. How else can we explain not being able to make one of the best women's teams in the world financially sustainable? Canada won gold in the last Olympics and bronze in the two games before that. They have been world-class for decades but get met with bush league budget cuts and an opaque and questionable business deal that redirects their marketing and sponsorship earnings to the owners of men's professional teams. This is unacceptable.
In the past, anyone who has asked for accountability or proper governance was exiled from the federation or silenced through things like non-disclosure agreements. This toxic and authoritarian culture needs to end. We need a radical overhaul, with much wider representation and scrutiny.
The problems with Canada Soccer have long been apparent. The heritage committee threatened to pull funding on the federation back in 2008. Please take the action that will institute real change. We need a national inquiry.
When Ben Johnson's steroid scandal rocked Canada, we responded by becoming a world leader on doping in sport. This is a pivotal moment for Canadian athletes, to be sure, but we can meet it with the wisdom and the compassion that have been missing from this all. We can transform this difficulty into a more ethical, healthy, dignified and effective way of administering sports in our country.
Thank you.
:
Good morning, Mr. Vice-Chair and members of the committee.
My name is David Wallbridge. I am a labour and employment lawyer in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
I want to begin by acknowledging that I'm in Mi'kma'ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq people.
I'd also like to acknowledge and thank the committee's staff for their assistance in arranging for my video appearance.
Most of my practice involves representing employees and unions across Atlantic Canada in the public and private sectors. Beyond the representational work, I have an ongoing interest in legislative matters affecting workers' issues and rights.
From a workplace perspective, the provinces, in particular, have abandoned most athletes, particularly hockey players, but in some cases any athletes working for a team, such as soccer, lacrosse—it doesn't matter what sport.
This committee should be very concerned about the workplace rights of players. From a safety perspective, having basic workplace rights and a means to having those rights enforced, helps to balance a very unbalanced power structure.
Many of my comments will focus on the Canadian Hockey League and its affiliate leagues and teams.
The players who work for Canadian Hockey League teams are young, and they're chasing a dream. It puts them in an extraordinarily vulnerable position.
In general, young workers are more vulnerable than others. They're inexperienced, often working their first job. They're not aware of their rights. Many are minors working for adults.
It's the same for major junior hockey. You have 16-year-olds working with 20-year-olds or older. That's who the employer employs.
Watching some of the games, it's unimaginable, as an employment lawyer, to think of a situation where an adult can get into a fist fight with a minor and there are no consequences. What's most troubling is that the owners profit from it.
I understand it's a unique workplace. Being an employee player on a hockey team is different from most workplaces. There are bosses. There are job requirements. The team earns revenue. The owners desire to make a profit off the labour of their players. It's really not much different from any other private sector enterprise.
What has happened in the provinces is nothing short of a complete withdrawal of any protection for these employees. Most provinces have exempted athlete employees and hockey player employees from many of their minimum labour standards.
What happened in Nova Scotia, where I'm from, just as an example, was astonishing. With no public consultation, and with, reportedly, no Canadian Hockey League lobbyists registered in the province, worker rights were taken away in the middle of the summer by regulation. It was reported by CBC News that, essentially, the league called, and the premier changed the law. It was law reform in fast-forward. This has now spread to most other provinces—the lack of minimum labour standards for employees.
What should the committee do about it?
The committee needs to recommend, or have as part of any inquiry, some option to intervene on behalf of employee players. The committee should recommend an inquiry, or that the federal government instruct its legal counsel to come forward with whatever proposals are required to put in place proper workplace protections for the health and safety of employee players.
This could include taking action under the Canada Labour Code to have it declared as federal work or undertaking. This should all be part of any review of safety in sport, not just for hockey but for all other athletes. This is really about, and we've heard it from other witnesses, the shocking imbalance of power that exists, while a significant imbalance of power is between these employees and their employers, the teams and the league.
Thank you.
Good morning. I'd like to begin by thanking you all for inviting me here today to speak to you about our little sport, which I think is more often associated with The Princess Bride or Star Wars than with a modern Olympic event.
My name is Emily. You may also know me as the unnamed athlete in a recent Reuters article detailing some of my experiences while training under Igor and Victor Gantsevich at Dynamo Fencing Club in Vancouver.
I'm here today to speak not exclusively to my own history of abuse but on behalf of the dozens of other Canadian fencers who have been brave enough to share their stories and desire for change.
As you have already heard with respect to so many other sports, for decades a culture of toxicity, bullying and abuse has been pervasive in Canadian fencing.
I'd like to tell you a story about a coach named Kyle Foster. In 2018 Kyle Foster hosted several female national team athletes at his home for a training camp prior to an international event. Some of those girls were underage, and while they were under his care, Mr. Foster brought out sex toys. He demonstrated how to use those sex toys on himself and on some of the athletes. He encouraged them to go to a sex club. A complaint was filed; wrongdoing was found, and as a sanction Kyle Foster received a year-long no-contact order with respect to some of the athletes who were involved.
In 2020 another complaint was filed, again alleging sexual harassment involving a minor. The independent third party investigation again found wrongdoing. What were the sanctions? There was an apology letter as well as a one-year order of no contact with the survivor, and a four-month ban from competition during the time of the pandemic, when there were no events being held regardless. After some push-back from the survivor, the CFF posted these sanctions on its website, though they were taken down after four months.
Kyle Foster is the owner of the Canadian Fencing Academy in Oakville, Ontario, team leader at Toronto Metropolitan University fencing, and an accredited member of the Canadian Fencing Federation, the CFF. If his recent social media is any indication, he has been advertising his children's programs as recently as February 8.
I wish I could tell you that these were the only incidents of misconduct that we've heard about over the past months, but the heartbreaking reality is that we've heard story after story of maltreatment at the hands of coaches and other individuals associated with the CFF from across the country. Again and again we have also heard that survivors are afraid. They are afraid that if they come forward they will face not only personal retribution from their abusers but also the risk of losing their national team spots. This is because under the current CFF selection policy, national members may be chosen by majority vote of CFF officials and staff rather than by results or official rankings. For many athletes, coming forward with their stories of abuse could mean losing not only their profession but also their lifelong dream of competing for Canada.
Stories like Kyle Foster's show athletes that their voices will not be heard even if they decide to navigate the complicated process of reporting their maltreatment. What is left for athletes to do? If they choose to come forward, they risk everything that they have worked for in exchange for what? An apology letter.
This is why we created Fencing for Change. We love this sport. This is where we've grown up, met our closest friends and learned our most valuable lessons. Our athletes are hurting. My friends are hurting, and it's time for change.
Our hope is to keep the positivity that sport can bring while making the culture one that supports athletes' success on and off piste. To achieve that change we must first understand the full breadth of the issue. This is why having a public inquiry into Canadian sport culture is so imperative. That is not to say that an inquiry will solve the issues that it will uncover, but it will provide an informed framework on which we can build a supportive future.
We are at a pivotal time in the history of Canadian sports. The momentum of athletes' coming forward is a force that is too strong to silence or to redirect. We now have the responsibility to decide what kind of legacy we will leave behind for all future athletes. Will it be one scarred with our stained history of abuse, of sacrificing children's well-being and of prioritizing medals over the lives of athletes, or will we be part of the change?
We as athletes have done our part. We're here to ask for your help in the next steps towards a safe and inclusive community of sport in Canada, in which all are welcome to experience the absolute joy that sports can bring. That step can be achieved only through a national public inquiry.
Thank you.
:
Thank you very much, Chair.
I want to thank all of the witnesses, virtually and in person, for being here and for the bravery they're showing.
There was no pathway for many of you. You're the ones who created that path. That's an important legacy. You need to know that there are people now who are brave enough to come forward because of people like you who led that way.
However, you're saying that those who are brave enough to call out those issues are still suffering retribution, and that's one of the things we really need to focus on.
Ms. Neil, as a former captain and a player for the Canadian nationals—I think you mentioned you were at five World Cups as a player or a coach—I appreciated your submission in writing. You talked about how the current system puts the onus on the athletes to hold the organizations to account. That's something we need to address. You talked about “mismanagement”, and “financial practices”. You talked about “dispensing of the norms of good governance”, and then the “failure to adhere to [their] own policies”.
We've seen so many times, in this study and elsewhere, that organizations do their own reports, their own studies, and they seem more performative than anything.
What are your concerns about organizations that say they will take care of it—that they'll handle their own strategy development plans—and that then try to rebrand themselves? How can we hold them accountable?
:
Well, first of all, when you consider performance, a lot of the performances are occurring in spite of it. When players and athletes are calling for transparency over and over again, it means they do not trust, and trust is fundamental to any human relationship.
When you're talking about the ethics of how people are going about it, you can see a pattern of behaviour over time. That's why I cited 30 years. With what people and the leadership are saying, and the lived values of what they're doing over time, you can see the attitudes come out through the behaviours of what the reality is. Right now, with the sports organizations, there's a big gap between what they're saying and what they're doing. This is a massive problem.
Leaders need to take a reflective approach to what has come forward—whistle-blowers coming forward or people saying there's a lack of transparency—and look at their own leadership approaches. That takes a lot, and it takes a lot of vulnerabilities of leaders to do that. That takes a lot of work and humility.
If you want to make the problem go away, then now you need to excuse the whistle-blowers. There's a conflict within the person, and they have to rectify that somehow, within themselves, to change their own behaviours or to make voices go away. It's a double-edged sword. There's the first victimization, say of the former U-20s, and then there's the institution's response to that. That can be as harmful, if not more harmful. It impacts, as Emily just mentioned, the culture, not just then, but into the here and now.
I must admit that I am truly shaken this morning, even though I had prepared myself for this encounter and for the kind of testimony we were likely to hear.
Thanks to each and every one of you for your courage.
I'm angry about people's indifference to the situation. I'm not sure that the committee is the right forum. Your testimony needs to be heard by a judge or an independent commissioner so that concrete measures can result from your testimony, whether in terms of the judiciary, the police or at another level.
We've heard a very wide range of stories that affect sexual, financial, psychological or physical aspects of life. These cases of abuse are very difficult. I can't understand why things aren't moving more quickly at the political level and I'm genuinely sorry about that.
Thank you for being with us today. Your testimony will truly move things forward.
I'm going to begin with Ms. Denhollander.
Ms. Denhollander, I'll begin by calling attention to your courage. You were the first person who dared to speak out. You were pivotal in effecting a major change around the world, because of what you did and what you said.
How important was Judge Aquilina's inquiry in advancing the claims made by American gymnasts?
How do you feel about what you heard today in the testimony?
Thank you.
:
I think Judge Aquilina's ruling was absolutely critical, because it was a values statement. It communicated how much the survivors of Larry's abuse were worth. What you have before you today is also a values question: How much are your children worth?
This is the reality. Every time your athletic organizations are choosing an action, whether that is passivity, whether it is an assessment that is really designed to be a PR stunt, whether it is silencing survivors.... Every time your athletic associations take an action, every time you take an action, you are, in essence, pulling out a scale. On one side of that scale, the athletic associations are placing the priorities that they have. Maybe it's a desire to win, fear of loss of reputation, a desire to protect assets or professional relationships, or a goal those organizations have. Then, on the other side, they are placing the children who are going to pay the price for the choice they make.
Judge Aquilina's ruling was critical, because it sent the message that our children matter and that these survivors matter. I think what you have clearly heard from these athletes and from so many who have testified before is that the athletic organizations that are in charge of athlete and child safety right now are pulling out that same scale. They are saying that their organization and their reputation matter more.
I really appreciate Ms. Neil's answer about how safety really contributes to athletic success. I would like to reframe that question for you a bit, because, again, we have to go back to our core values. When we start with the question of how we can make sure we still win, what we are really saying is that maybe winning is more important than our athletes' safety: “How do we make sure we get to this end goal? And hey, if we can keep kids safe, that's great, too.”
I would submit to you, members of Parliament, that that's the wrong goal to start with. Our question really ought to be, first and foremost, this: “How do we contribute to making sure our children are safe, understanding that safety is also fundamental to athletic success and professional well-being?”
What you have heard before you today is that all of these organizations have engaged in nothing more than PR stunts. It has been a regime change from one toxic system to another toxic system. The assessments and inquiries that have been put before you, where these organizations have said, “Oh no, we understand everything that has gone wrong,” have lacked transparency. They have not involved survivor voices. They have not been set up in a way that makes it safe for survivors to engage and that is actually looking to get to the truth of what's taken place.
My field of professional expertise is institutional transformation, setting up these types of processes so that we can actually find out what's gone wrong. Let's diagnose the complexities of what led to this child abuse and this athlete abuse so that we can make sure it doesn't happen again. This is complex. It involves culture. It involves policy. It involves structure. It involves a lot of things we don't think of as directly tied to child abuse, like how board systems manage their finances and selection processes.
Having a national inquiry that can look into the complexity of those dynamics to accurately diagnose what took place, to accurately identify individuals who are part of that toxic system so that those individuals are no longer in charge of child and athlete safety, is an absolutely critical step. It really starts with that fundamental question, asking what your children are worth. That is what you have to decide today.
:
As someone who has come here twice and broken down while talking about what happened to us, I think it's, you know, shocking, honestly, that there's nothing being done. It feels sometimes disheartening. How many times do we need to keep showing up, and how many times do we need to keep telling all of you? You know, I think for the four of us, it has massively impacted our lives in a really substantial manner.
Yes, I think I don't understand how, just on a human level, you can literally witness the car accidents over and over, all of our stories in all of our sports. It's all the same thing. From that perspective, I think it's been very disappointing in terms of the larger.... I don't understand what's holding back a national inquiry. How can we cheer on our athletes if we're telling you that this is a reality of what it looks like behind every single sport, province and gender, you know?
You just wonder whether she is even watching. Is the watching? Is the watching? Is whoever is making these decisions watching?
It's very much impacted our lives, far past our sporting careers. It's just so disappointing. I just feel ashamed, honestly, to be a Canadian—ashamed that this is the reality of what it means and of the response to being a Canadian athlete. This is the response to so many of us who have been coming forward for months now, telling you that this is the reality behind the Olympic medals and all this kind of thing. You know, it's—
:
I'm at a loss for words over what you've just told us. It's very profound. We are listening to you and we understand.
[English]
We know the pain that you've endured. We hear your powerful voices. Ms. McCormack, when you say we can't continue with the status quo of harm, that is something that I think every member of this committee absolutely agrees with. We are wedded to that idea as well. We have to stop the harm. That's why we've been having these hearings; that's why we continue to hear this profound testimony from each of you. Thank you.
We've heard your voices on a public inquiry. I think that is something that, as a committee, we will be discussing as part of the report that we have to prepare. Personally, I absolutely support the call for a public inquiry.
What has to happen now? What does the federal government need to be doing now with Canada Soccer, Fencing Canada, Boxing Canada or Gymnastics Canada? What are the measures that the federal government needs to put in place now?
These are all organizations funded by the taxpayer. They have basically had carte blanche. They've had a blank cheque to do whatever they want. The astounding, appalling, horrific stories of harm and abuse that continue and are perpetuated obviously show that Sport Canada and the federal government haven't been doing their job.
What would you like to see the announce this week that would oblige each of these organizations to fill their mandate of not doing harm, protecting the athletes and protecting the public?
:
What is completely lacking—this is from conversations with all of us—is that athlete organizations, these sport NSOs.... As we've all said, we're little specks, and they control the funding, the power and who is getting chosen. I don't think things can change until there is some sort of body that represents our interests and our voice. If they know that we are represented, that we're not trying to play our sport and fight these monsters at the same time, and that there is a collective to be able to....
Myriam is now getting sued by her coach for defamation for going through the sport process. That is coming out of Myriam's pocket, to fight back for basically just doing what she was told to do in the sport system and report maltreatment. If there were an entity....
Nine dollars are going to Canada Soccer to basically have sketchy financial behaviour and also clear cases of abuse. If there were an organization protecting us from those nine dollars that are going to Soccer Canada, with half of that money going to an organization that fights for our rights and makes sure we're okay.... None of us have received therapy from Canada Soccer for what we've been put through. We've had a private person come forward and give us funding to even be able to approach them.
We're so underprotected, underfunded and under-represented, yet the sport system does not happen without our participation. It's the most insane set-up, and it's reflective of what's going on.
That's what needs to happen. There has to be a structural change in the system, an entity that protects our interests and fights for us so that we can just play our sport in a safe environment, enjoy it, not be harmed and not be picking up the pieces years after we are done playing.
:
I absolutely agree with my colleagues.
On the side of Emily and the mental health process, we need funds. We need money. We need resources. After two years, I'm still in therapy, and I'm paying, of course. The game plan is helping, because I have two therapists, but I suffered from disassociation for six months, so I can't recall either my Olympic qualification or my Olympic participation. I have no recall of the best memory of my life—as it's supposed to be—so we need...and all that money is paid from my pocket. I need to work to pay for my therapy, so how am I able to work if I'm not able to work...? I have to go to work to earn money to pay for therapy, but it's super hard to go to work because I was in a depression stage for so long.
Yes, we need help on that, please, and we need to stop people inside the federation from using our complaints against us in the judicial department in our province. On what we're saying, all the complaints we're telling you about, we're using the mechanisms you put in place. The government put mechanisms in place and put a complaint process in place, but when it's used, it can be used against us, and we don't have the same money power. You have to understand that: I don't have the same power as people in my federation who are paid, who are actual employees of this federation and receive a proper salary. Athletes are not employees of their federation.
I'm happy to see that at Hockey Canada they are employees. They are the luckiest ones, yet you see abuse in that federation, and it is considering them athlete employees. Imagine, for the rest of us who are not even considered employees of the federation, how we are treated. We don't even have this respect of being considered an employee, but it's because of us that the system is working.
It's not working.
:
It really begins with a well-done national inquiry, and this is why. This is what I tell my children: There are two reasons you can choose to do what's right. You can choose to do what's right because you care about the people who will pay the consequences if you don't, or you can choose to do what's right because you are afraid of the consequences. The goal is that we have organizations and leaders who want to do what's right because they care about the athletes and the children under their protection, but that is not what we have right now. The only thing that remains at this point in time is motivation out of fear of consequences, knowing that, if we do not do this right, the truth is going to be told about what we have done if we silence survivors. If we stand on behalf of abusers, if we fail to follow our policy, the truth is going to be told.
The most powerful thing members of Parliament can do right now is stand up and say, “We are going to tell the truth, and if you have not done this right, we are going to tell the truth.” Setting up a national inquiry that has the proper survivor protections in place can be done in a way that is trauma-informed and that protects survivors' identities. We talk about personal identifying information, or PII. It can be set up in a way that protects survivor PII and that is a collaborative process with the survivor community and with members of Parliament, where everyone is moving together in the same direction.
Let's do the right thing. Let's find out how we can keep our children safe. Let's work together to tell the truth. A well-done inquiry or independent investigation is a truly collaborative process, because everyone is headed in the same direction of doing what is right. It's set up with the proper survivor protections in place. It is set up so that all information that is relevant is accessible and can be told, so that we are truly pursuing transparency and accountability, and it is set up in a way that is very robust, that can look at the culture of the organization as well as policy and structure breakdowns, because we tend to find all three things.
When you have an organization that is run by individuals who are not geared towards child safety, oftentimes those organizations are set up in a way that the structure allows for communication silos, power imbalances or other corporate structural deficiencies that make it possible to ignore red flags and to cover up child abuse. You need a very robust inquiry that is going to look at all of those dynamics, is set up in a way that can truly access and report on all relevant information and is done with the proper survivor protections in place.
This can be done. I do it all the time. When everyone is headed in the same direction of telling the truth and working together to protect the next generation, a national inquiry or an independent investigation is not an antagonistic process. It's very collaborative, because everyone is moving towards protecting the next generation and bringing our community to heal from what has been done.
:
There are some changes that have taken place that I'm grateful to see. There has been a significant amount of regime change in USA Gymnastics, for example.
I'll be honest with you. Most of the problems you are facing right now are problems that, to an extent, you inherited by moving our safe sport system into Canada. Our safe sport system is incredibly broken. It is underfunded. It lacks proper victim protections. It has lots of policies in place from a top-down level that make it very difficult for our athletes to report, and there has been a stunning lack of transparency in our athletic organizations.
When you speak to the gymnasts in the United States, they will tell you that USAG, to a large degree, has lacked the types of transparent assessments that we have asked for. This is contrasted with U.K. gymnasts, who felt that the Whyte report, in general, at least gave them a voice. It gave them the opportunity to say, “Yes, we feel like you have really understood what's gone on.”
There are some models that I have set up in the United States that work primarily with very large and complex religious denominations. These processes have been much more robust and, therefore, much more successful than what has taken place so far in our athletic organizations.
Really, the key is that you want the survivors to be able to come out and say, “We have been hurt, and we believe these organizations have truly grappled with the complexities of what led to our abuse.” The reason you want survivors to be able to say that is, first, it is critical to their healing and we have a responsibility, when we cause harm, to aid in the healing process. Second, the heartbeat of a survivor is to know that their story means something and that what has happened to them is going to make the next generation safer.
It is entirely possible to set up processes whereby both the leaders of the organization who are heading in the right direction come out and say, “That was so helpful for us and we now understand what we need to do,” and the survivors can say, “We feel like we have been heard, and we have confidence that the truth has come out and that there's an understanding of what's taken place.”
You then have the long road ahead of you of rebuilding, but you have the knowledge base for what went wrong, so the diagnostics have been done and the reform can be accurate and effective. That provides closure for the survivor community and a path forward that is effective, makes good use of resources and accurately protects the next generation.
:
Yes. What has happened in virtually every province—there are one or two exceptions—is employees are covered under the minimum standards legislation. It's the labour code or employment standards, however you want to describe it. Federally, it's part III of the Canada Labour Code. What has happened across the board is that players are exempted from either the entirety of the code or sections of the code. In some jurisdictions, it explicitly lists hockey player employees, and in others, like in my province of Nova Scotia, it says just “athletes”. That is a problem.
Listening to the witnesses talk about their particular situations, and then imagining the work I do for employees.... When you take away any workplace rights and you take away any means to enforce those rights, a culture can perpetuate that results in a whole variety of harm.
I would hope that this committee looks at this huge gap that's been created for athlete players as part of the proposal for an inquiry, and that in your report you say that this has to be on the table. You'd have to pull the provinces in.
The other component to look at—and I suggested this in my initial presentation—is what authority the federal government has to assert jurisdiction in the absence of the provinces' participation. There are means under the Canada Labour Code and the Constitution Act whereby that could be appropriate. Obviously, these are very delicate constitutional questions that the government would want and need to get advice on, but they have to be there.
You can't allow this culture of exploitation, whether it's in amateur sport or in professional sport, to continue for anybody, particularly for any employee players.
:
One of the primary steps that, hopefully, can be taken is putting anti-SLAPP type of legislation into place, or protections into place so that survivors are able to act as whistle-blowers without fear of retaliation, without fear of being left unprotected when their abusers come after them, and without fear of having to forfeit their point system and their careers. Protections should be put in place to allow survivors to speak up, and to do so safely.
Honestly, again, the most important thing that anybody can do is look at how we communicate on issues of abuse when the message is.... I really appreciated the most recent questions asking, “What do you think about the money being returned to Hockey Canada?” There really hasn't been transparency there. When that type of action is taken, when any type of action is taken, it is a communication. It is a value statement.
When you have communications taking place, and actions taking place, that are making value statements, we're not going to require transparency. We are not going to require honesty and accountability. We are not going to require proper diagnostics. When that is taking place, what the government is essentially saying is that it matters, but not actually. We don't like child abuse, but we don't not like it enough to say, “Hey, we are not going to fund these systems while they are harming our athletes and children.”
The most important thing that leadership can do is communicate very clearly in words and actions that this matters, that we are going to find the truth and we are going to tell it. We are going to use whatever resources are at our disposal to make it safe for those athletes and children to come forward, so that we can find out what has happened to them.
What we say and do is a communication on our values.
:
Thank you, Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for their courage and their testimony today.
I took note that each of you asked for a national public inquiry. I heard Ms. Hepfner say “when” the government conducts an inquiry, so I think the needs to weigh in on this. She's been hugely silent.
I took note of your comments, Ms. Mason and Ms. McCormack, that she has been absent in terms of action. She has known about all of the things that are going on in these various sporting organizations, and continues to fund without concrete actions.
There are some actions that we've heard could be done while an inquiry is being held. They include vulnerable sector checks for every coach and person who's involved. This is something that happens in most charitable organizations across the country. There's also the reporting of sexual abuse to the police. It's a criminal offence. These organizations should not be investigating it themselves. As well, a registry would prevent these predators from going from one place to another and continuing the cycle of abuse.
There's anti-SLAPP legislation, making protection for whistle-blowers and ranking systems that are objective. Then I think there's something to be done in governance, because it's clear that although there's governance in all of these organizations, it's not working.
Ms. Mason, do you have some comments about the governance? I know you have an opinion here.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to start by thanking all of our witnesses here today. I know the committee appreciates their testimony and their commitment to improving sports in general across this country.
The stories we've heard over the last few months have been unbelievable. When I hear about the abuse that's taken place, especially child abuse—well, abuse to anyone—to me, it's something we need to move on quickly.
I've been public in my support for a public inquiry, and I support the witnesses here who are calling for that as well.
I wanted to start by asking a bit more about whistle-blowing and the lack of protections that are in place.
We heard today from one of our witnesses that she came forward with information and now is being sued. I know we can't speak specifically to that case, but is there anyone on the panel who can speak to the tactics that are used in a bit more detail—not specifically to the case we heard, but in general? What are tactics that organizations use to hold back whistle-blowers, using the court system and other methods to silence them?
Can anyone speak in a bit more detail about that to the committee?
:
Absolutely, and this is for a couple of reasons. One thing you have heard repeatedly from survivors and athletes who have testified today and over the past several months is that the organizations are, by and large, riddled with the same people or groups of people who have been part of the abusive system. To suggest that that leadership is capable of doing an accurate assessment or even has the skill and the knowledge base to be able to look at a structure, a policy change, a practice or a cultural dynamic and understand and identify how that plays into child and athlete abuse is just naïveté in the highest degree.
The people who have been part of the system or, frankly, who just lack the skill sets to be able to do that type of assessment cannot be in the position of accurately diagnosing what's taken place, so we have to get outside of that system, and the national inquiry provides you a way to do that.
Of course, it will need to be set up well. It will need to be set up so that survivors are safe to engage, so that proper survivor protections are in place and so that the team is trauma-informed. That team will need to have the requisite education and knowledge base to be able to understand athlete wellness and corporate structure, and some of these dynamics that we've heard and have recognized are quite complex.
Child abuse and athlete abuse extend far beyond what we think of in our child abuse protection policy. These are complex issues, and you need a team of skilled experts who have access to all of the relevant information, a team that is set up in a way that makes it safe for athletes to come forward. Until that process is done, what you've essentially done is looked at all of these organizations that have decades of bodies left behind them, and said, “We understand that you're part of the problem, but we also think you can fix the problem that you created.” That simply does not work.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you so much to the witnesses for coming forward and for speaking to us today. Your testimony was compelling. It was moving, and I think you highlighted the disequilibrium that exists between the national federations and athletes.
When we talked about the fencing selection process...I know a lot of my colleagues may not be totally aware of how that puts power in the hands of federations and coaches. In my sport, swimming, you don't have that. The top two finishers at Olympic trials automatically make the team, provided they made the Olympic standard.
In so many sports—I'm looking at Rachael for when she was competing in gymnastics—you could finish second in the Olympic trials in the all-around, but you'd be going back into a room and Bela and Marta Karolyi would basically make the decision as to who made the Olympic team. You could be penalized because you didn't go to their training camps, or when Larry Nassar was at their camps and you caused a ruckus, you might not be invited. That happens in way too many sports. In our recommendations, I think we need to deal with that as best we can.
You are all heroes in my book. Thank you.
I want to go to Andrea and Ciara for a moment, on Canada Soccer.
Ciara, you mentioned that the minutes never showed the contract with Canadian Soccer Business being signed. As you might remember, Canada Soccer left those out of the initial minutes that were provided. Then, miraculously, minutes turned up after our meeting that suddenly showed an approval of the contract after the fact. We still know the general secretary of Canada Soccer didn't sign the contract as he was required to. There are a number of issues around the contract.
We have Mr. Reed from Canada Soccer coming next week. In terms of the witnesses who have already appeared from Canada Soccer and in whose testimony you've spotted inconsistencies and inaccuracies, I would like to give you the opportunity to tell us what those were, so we can follow up next week with Mr. Reed.
Andrea, I don't know if you want to go first.
:
Yes. I just want to say, first of all, thank you to the committee members.
I know, just from watching—especially you, with Canada Soccer, at that hearing—that it's been well established. Whether it's the McLaren report putting all of the people at the scene of the crime in the Birarda case.... It's not even a question. Victor Montagliani and Bob Lenarduzzi are names in black and white that this report found. Then you have people sitting here, like Victor Montagliani, saying that he wasn't involved. Yes, you were. In that report, it said you were involved. Those are facts.
I think, again, what you uncovered also about the finances.... It's so comical. It's almost a blueprint of how dysfunctional it all is. Again, the minutes were not there. It was not signed off on, yet this agreement still exists, and the federation is essentially bankrupt. The future of Canadian players for the next 20 years....
I'm in Ireland, playing right now with Canadian players in a women's league. There's no league in Canada. People have to go over there. That is all part of the CSB. It's all been established.
I think the question now is that there's obviously a huge issue with what happens now. This has all been established. It's not a question of this: “Victor, were you there, or weren't you?” He was there. The evidence has proven that he was there. I just think that is all highlighting, again, this lack of what happens now. The CSB deal is not legitimate, because they did not follow the processes. What happens now? Victor Montagliani and others were at the scene of this whole thing. They're still involved in soccer. What now?
I think that's what we need to ask ourselves. I think in terms of our case it's quite clear. There's been massive financial mismanagement. There's been massive, egregious behaviour with the Birarda situation. I don't think they're going to be the ones to provide solutions, accountability or transparency, because they've been the ones.... We've had to put in so much to even just get here today—after 15 years of fighting for all this.