CHPC Committee Meeting

     I call this meeting to order.

    Welcome to meeting 87 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

    I would like to acknowledge that this meeting is taking place on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

    Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of Thursday, June 23, 2022. Even though public health authorities and the Board of Internal Economy no longer require mask wearing indoors, I would like to ask you to think about wearing a mask for your own good.

    I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone in this meeting that you cannot take photos of the screen. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website.

    If you look at the bottom of your screen, for those of you who are attending virtually, there's a little globe, and that is your interpretation. If you press it, you can have your translation of choice. Please turn your microphones off when you're not speaking, and speak only when the chair recognizes you.

     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.

    Today, we have two sets of witnesses, and we're dividing—

    Point of order, Madam Chair.

    Is it possible, with unanimous consent, to add Lisa Ross, former coach of the women's national sailing team, as a witness? She is present, but there is some confusion about her being called, and I'd like her testimony to be heard. We're supposed to hear three witnesses per hour, and so we'd have time to hear her. I'm asking the committee members for unanimous consent to do that.

    Thank you.

    Thank you, Sébastien.

    There is a little problem. She may have to go into the 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. slot, which will give us four people in that slot. In the first slot, we had a request from one of the witnesses that they didn't want to be on the same meeting as other sports teams. We're following that request.

    I don't know if you'll get unanimous consent for the second hour. That gives us four people in the second hour.

    I have Ms. Gladu, who has her hand up here.

    The Chair: Ms. Gladu, go ahead.

    Thank you, Chair.

    We definitely want to hear from the witness, but there are a lot of witnesses who have asked to appear before the committee, and there's a process of how they get slotted in. I wouldn't want to create a precedent of people showing up at committee thinking they can join the committee. That's not the way we operate.

    Although I do want to hear the testimony, I don't want to hear it today. I want to follow the normal protocol.

    Thank you, Ms. Gladu.

    Are there any other comments? Does anyone disagree with Ms. Gladu?

    Obviously, I disagree, Madam Chair. I want her to be able to testify.

    Thank you, Sébastien.

    I'm going to ask the committee if we have unanimous consent.

    An hon. member: No.

    The Chair: We do not have unanimous consent, so we're going to have to ask the witness to speak at another time. The clerk will look after that.

    In the first hour, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., we have Susan Auch, Olympic medallist and former chief executive officer of Speed Skating Canada. Then we have, from Ban Ads for Gambling, Karl Subban.

    Ms. Auch, you will speak for five minutes. You can begin now with your opening statement.

    Thank you.

    Thank you, Madam Chair and the entire committee, for inviting me to speak today.

    I am struggling a bit with asthma right now, so please bear with me.

    As a child, I ran track, played ringette and swam at the local pool. I bike-raced around Birds Hill park and, of course, skated on frozen ponds. I cherish the time I spent doing sports as a child. These positive beginnings set me up for a lifelong love of sport and drive my passion to see sport delivered safely, fairly and inclusively for all Canadian athletes.

    However, within our Canadian sport system today, this is not possible. I know this first-hand. I'm a five-time Olympian, three-time Olympic medallist, the first speed skater to be named a Bobbie Rosenfeld female athlete of the year, and a member of the Olympic, Canada, Alberta and Manitoba halls of fame and the Order of Manitoba.

    I am also a survivor, and I am a victim of retribution from the Canadian sport system.

    Blinded by a learned and ingrained desire to make my country and community proud, I endured treatment that no young person should have to endure. I paid a high price for my Olympic success and an even higher price when I went back to sport to try to make positive change.

    The verbal abuse, sexual harassment and isolation began when I moved to Montreal, and again when I moved to Calgary to pursue speed skating internationally. I remember my coach sticking his finger in my face and yelling, “Don't eff up!” before races. I remember the relentless sexual harassment by my coach on the ice, in my dorm, in the elevator and even in the Calgary Oval offices, to the point where I had to squeeze between the dividers and windows to get out. When I finally reached my breaking point and told him to eff off, I was suspended from the team.

    I used to think I became focused and resilient because I was able to survive this abuse, but no young Canadian needs to go through that to win medals. It's impossible to know what I could have achieved had I not had to waste energy just surviving the system. Systemic problems in sport cause this enabling of abuses and result in retribution for anyone who speaks up or tries to make change.

    In the early 2000s, Own the Podium was created and sport began receiving much-needed funds to help support athletes competing with the world. By 2006, we saw amazing results. Now, OTP is fully funded by taxpayer dollars and involved in much more than just directing funds to high performance, which has been problematic enough.

    The OTP CEO and directors impose themselves on national sport organization staff interviews, and now even on CEO and ED interviews. OTP and the Canadian Olympic Committee put themselves between HP staff and the organization, generally undermining the employer. OTP pressures CEOs to keep the national sport organization staff they prefer, regardless of the problematic culture they create or the blatant overspending of taxpayer dollars. Generally, anyone OTP prefers is protected by OTP. We see that in the constant revolving door of fired then rehired people in sport.

    The worst is that OTP puts pressure on sports to refrain from reporting allegations if it risks Olympic medals, even when the allegations are about harassment or sexual in nature. In 2016, after I reported sexual harassment by the president of SSC, the CEO did mediation instead of an investigation, which allowed the perpetrator to step down with accolades. The bystanders, including an SSC staff person, were not interviewed or investigated, and the victim, after signing an NDA, was left isolated and gagged. I was left exposed.

    When I became the interim CEO, one of the bystanders to the incident became a director and, last summer—despite my objections to the president—the chair of the SSC HR committee. I was terminated shortly thereafter, even though SSC was in the best shape it has been in many years. CEOs are in an impossible situation. We either hold on to our convictions and prioritize our duty of care to the athletes, or we satisfy and please OTP and the COC—we become their puppets. Sport Canada generally stays out of the conflicts.

    I have been subjected to baseless and nameless complaints that don't amount to anything, but they sure are scary to navigate. I still feel controlled, and I don't work for the organization or any of its affiliates. When I tried to make governance changes, the board refused to accept that diversity was just as important as skills, and the nomination committee preferred white men at a disproportionate rate. SSC now has a president who has exceeded his term and number of years on the board, according to the bylaws. He is the president beyond reproach.

    I gave 20 years of my life to HP sport, and 20 more to volunteer and work in sport. It didn't make a difference. Ultimately, my experience taught me that even an Olympic medallist who is qualified and experienced at being a CEO can't go in and try to improve the system without facing retribution.

     There are many, many people who still are unable to come forward for fear of breaking the code of silence or because of a non-disclosure agreement. No one is safe. Speaking up and change are not welcome in Canadian sport. For this reason, the sport system will continue to erode, and possibly implode, if we do not immediately enact a national inquiry and abolish NDAs that cover up wrongdoing.

    Thank you very much.

    Thank you very much, Ms. Auch.

    I'm going to go now to Karl Subban, committee member for Ban Ads for Gambling, for five minutes, please.

    May I ask the clerk to help me with the stopwatch? My stopwatch doesn't seem to be working this morning.

    Could you time the fragments for me and call the time?

    Yes, I'd be happy to do that.

    I'd just note that Mr. Subban is having trouble connecting. He's still on the phone with IT.

    Shall we go with asking questions of Ms. Auch, then?

    Ms. Auch, there will be a question and answer session, and the first round is six minutes. The six minutes include questions and answers, so try to be as concise as possible.

    We're going to begin with Kevin Waugh, for the Conservatives.

    Actually, Madam Chair, I'll start. Thanks so much.

    Okay, Marilyn, go ahead.

    Thank you to our witness for being here today. You made us proud as Canadians, and I appreciate your candid testimony.

    We have heard a lot of testimony about what's going on in sport across the country. I heard you say that Sport Canada did not really intervene. It is the one that is supposed to be doing something about this. The minister most recently introduced a mechanism to solve abuse, which involves Sport Canada. What do you think about that?

    I think Sport Canada should be intervening. It's the money of the federal government that is.... Many of the sports, specifically speed skating, function at a high percentage with federal funds. They just wouldn't support.... I'd call and try to get help with the intervening that OTP did, and frankly, it's excessive to have an overlap of two organizations. It causes more bureaucracy and just isn't necessary.

    No, I never had any success in going to Sport Canada directly to try to get it to support me in letting me run the organization, which is a fully independent organization, a corporation. It's not part of Own the Podium, the Canadian Olympic Committee, or Sport Canada for that matter. We do answer to Sport Canada, but we're a separate organization. To have that kind of imposition where interventions are able to happen with threats of losing funding if we don't behave exactly the way Own the Podium wants us to behave.... That's inappropriate.

    What would you say is the effectiveness of the OSIC in conjunction with that? Is it helping at all?

    You know, I left before the OSIC was accepted by Speed Skating Canada. It was in its infancy, and I believe that Speed Skating Canada accepted it shortly after I left. The hope is for the OSIC to work. I think there are serious limitations for it.

    What I don't think works is independent third parties hired by organizations. The OSIC is a welcome step, in that it is not an independent organization hired directly by the specific organizations, but I think it's in its infancy. I think it has a long way to go, and it can't accept many complaints. There are only certain things it can accept, and there are so many other things—specifically in grassroots sports—that are not covered by the OSIC.

    Thank you. I would argue that anything that is criminal in nature should actually not be even investigated by any of these sport organizations. It should be a police matter.

    Hockey Canada received funding again from the Minister of Sport, after all of the situations that we've seen there and the fact that it has implemented only six of the 36 recommendations. What do you think about that?

     I don't know a whole lot about Hockey Canada. I, for one, really tried to implement Sport Canada recommendations that came directly from the Prime Minister. That was one of the fun parts of the job. It was one of the things that made me feel fulfilled.

    That being said, you often have very strong boards that oppose. As a CEO, you're balancing so many different things. You're balancing trying to please the athletes and get them all to the World Cup, and we know that no one has unlimited funds to do those things. We have boards that simply don't necessarily always want to move forward. Now, I know that hockey has a federally implemented board—I'm not sure how they were instituted. I would think they are trying to make the changes, but I suspect it's difficult.

    You spoke a little bit about the retribution you received. We have heard from other testimony that anti-retribution legislation would be important, as well as getting rid of these NDAs.

    Can you comment on that?

    Yes, for sure. Retribution is one of the ways we're all silenced, of course, whereby if you say something, there will be retribution to you individually or to the organization—withholding of funds or just online, on social media.

    NDAs are a way for organizations, not just in sport.... Sport is the one that's in the public eye, along with the arts sector. We have an opportunity to lead the way and abolish NDAs to cover up bad things. For sure, that is one of the simple things to do. I know it's somewhat complicated because NDAs also protect important private or corporate information, but they should not be allowed to be used to cover up bad things, for sure.

    You described somebody who is in the position of CEO and has been there longer than his term. It's against their own bylaws, so what's the mechanism to appeal that or to get Sport Canada to take action there?

    What I said was that the president, who is an elected member, has overstayed his maximum eight years and his maximum four terms.

    There is a way they could have made a special permission, but I did a search through freedom of information, and Heritage Canada doesn't have any of the resolutions that would have allowed him to stay longer.

    If a president wants to do something similar to what happened to me in Manitoba, if the president wants to impose their might through their policies and through the power they have, they have an unbelievable amount of power and they have the funds behind them. They have the legal defence that usually the people who are fighting them don't have, so it's very difficult.

    Are there any final recommendations you want the committee to consider?

    I would really encourage trying to lower the bureaucracy in sport, but not lower the funding, because it is much needed. Adding a level of bureaucracy was maybe helpful when the meddling and bullying and imposing were not so strong, but now, when we see these people in interviews and demanding to be in interviews with organizations they are not a part of, with the threat of intervention—

    I'm so sorry to interrupt.

    I wanted to flag, Dr. Fry, that the six minutes are up.

    Thank you very much.

    Thank you, Marilyn.

    We now go to the Liberals, starting with Lisa Hepfner.

    Lisa, you have six minutes, please.

    Thank you, Chair.

    Thank you, Ms. Auch.

    I have to tell you, I was also playing ringette in Calgary in the seventies and eighties, so I'm wondering if we encountered each other back then, maybe on opposing teams.

    For me, it was always a really positive experience. I learned teamwork, and I learned how to get better at sport, how to improve my skills. We had really great bonding moments when we went away as a team to different towns to play in tournaments. So for me, I'm trying to reconcile that experience with what is happening. I was never at the level where I was going to be an Olympic athlete, so I'm wondering if that's where this system breaks down and where the culture breaks down, when we're talking about athletes who are really at a higher level.

    We're not just hearing from skaters here at this committee. We're hearing from all kinds of different sports. I'm trying to see if maybe there's a link between the abuse we're seeing in all these different sports. Does it happen at a later level, when we're talking about higher-level athletes? Is there a problem with how we're training people to get to that higher level? Is that where the culture breaks down?

    Maybe you could opine a little bit on that.

     Well, I think things have really changed since the 1970s and 1980s. I think sport has become much more professionalized and regulated than it was when we were children. I think that is part of the problem throughout the grassroots level, all the way up to Olympic or professional-level sports.

    I think sports now are pressuring children to specialize into individual sports too early. We were able to do many sports. I played ringette until I was about 15. I was going to the Canada Games shortly after that, in speed skating and cycling. I think that doesn't happen as much now, because people are trying to develop these little robots that are going to win Olympic medals. I think it's the sport organizations that are allowing this to happen.

    Certainly, I tried to implement a better, long-term athlete development program before I left SSC. One of the goals was to allow children to be children on the ice, before we make them into little professional athletes. Ninety-nine per cent of the athletes won't get up there. What they get out of sport they get when they're children. They learn from sport all of the discipline, development, kinesthetic sense, muscle use, aerobic and anaerobic systems development, friendships and powerful communication styles. That is what sport is all about. Then, a few get to go on a little further and become Olympic medallists.

    We need to inspire both sport and healthier living. We need the Olympic medallists, the national sport heroes and the professional athletes to inspire families and children to go into sport. We also need the children, who are the bulk of our sporting system in Canada, to enjoy their time as athletes and not be pressured to go into a direction that might not be suited for them.

    I was fully suited to be an Olympic-level athlete. I loved the stress. I loved competition. I'm not sure that most kids love that. It's just not for everyone. Why are we pushing children to do that sooner than they need to?

    Would you have recommendations about how to protect children at that level? Do we need more supervision? Is there a plan? Are there any suggestions you might have for us?

    We need organizations to absolutely follow their own policies. Policies are there for a reason.

    There is conflict of interest with parents being involved in coaching and leadership positions. Conflict-of-interest documents aren't just to say that you have a conflict of interest and let everyone know. Once you have a conflict of interest, you're biased. You don't have the ability to say, “I'm not going to be biased.” You don't have that anymore. That is a huge part of it.

    There should be policies on keeping parents away, possibly, from their children's development in sport, so they are spectators only, not coaches, administrators and volunteers at board levels. It's tough, I know, because we need parents to be volunteers. There has to be some way to control the outside interference.

    It's not just parents. It's coaches who want to make their own little swim team, for example, the only team that is succeeding at sending athletes up to the national levels. They compete against each other. We need a better, positive rivalry system in Canada, rather than this competition system that is negative and forces coaches to feel like they're forced to hurry up and develop young athletes to be the best in the world. It's not healthy for everyone.

    Thanks very much.

    Would you say that better mental health or psychological supports would be helpful here?

    Absolutely. Access to mental health support as a young athlete would teach them, potentially, how to assess their surroundings and say no to things better. That's one of the problems. Children just idealize their coaches and it's tough to say “No, I don't want to do that.” For sure, mental health support and being socially stronger would be great for young athletes.

    I think that's my time.

    You have 50 seconds, Lisa.

     All right. Then let me ask whether you think we need better co-operation between provinces and the federal organizations. How do we bring everybody together so we're on the same page?

     You know, honestly, I think we have to take the system apart and rebuild it. A national inquiry is probably the only way to do it.

    What's difficult in this system today is that the PTSOs, the provincial sport organizations, the NSOs and then the multi-sport organizations are all fighting for a piece of the pie.

    Thank you very much, Lisa. That's it.

    I note that Mr. Subban is here. Has he been cleared for takeoff?

     Yes, we're ready for the faceoff. I'm ready to drop the puck.

    All right. We can have Mr. Subban present to the committee for five minutes, please.

    Thank you.

    I want to thank you for this opportunity to appear before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage on behalf of the campaign to ban ads for gambling. I am Karl Subban.

     I would like to take some time to share our position. The campaign is a group of sports-loving Canadians who are deeply disturbed by the proliferation of content advertising sports betting during televised—

    Madam Chair, I have a point of order. Is it possible to ask the witness to move his microphone out slightly and place it at mustache level?

    In the trial run it was okay.

    How is that?

    It's a little better, thanks.

    Go ahead, Mr. Subban.

     The campaign involves a group of sports-loving Canadians who are deeply disturbed by the proliferation of content advertising sports betting during televised sports, on social media, on billboards and in and around arenas and stadiums. We are Olympians, sports leaders and parents of athletes, as well as researchers and teachers. Such is the harm created by the ads for gambling that we urge Parliament to ban such advertising, in the same way and for the same reasons it previously banned advertising for tobacco, to minimize harm. We also call on federal, provincial and territorial governments to prevent betting on the Olympics, Paralympics, amateur and educational—that is, school, college and university—sports. We see it as a safe-sport issue.

    In the first place, the exhortation to gamble, urging people to gamble, demeans the spirit of the sport and creates a powerful external pressure upon athletes to perform in ways never intended. Instead of the athleticism, kinesthetic beauty, ethical values, intercultural respect and communal spirit of sports, sports betting reduces meaning to whether a team or a player achieves a point spread or a parlay is made within a game. It pressures the athlete to think about the spread, not the team. Athletes in sports on which betting is allowed are increasingly subjected to abusive pressure placed on them by gambling through social media.

    Second, although it's early days for hard data, we hear over and over again that the allure of sports betting, heightened by endorser stars like Wayne Gretzky, Auston Matthews and Connor McDavid, seems to be particularly attractive to young Canadian sportsmen, many of whom already suffer from confidence issues and other mental issues.

    What is not in doubt from the research is that worldwide gambling ads, in terms of both content and frequency, are particularly enticing to adolescents and other vulnerable—

    The Chair: You have 30 seconds.

    Mr. Karl Subban: Okay.

     What we'd like to say is that it's important to recognize that many other countries have begun to restrict advertising for sports betting. Italy and Belgium have banned it altogether, and other European countries restrict ads to times and venues that are not seen by children and youth.

    We want to see a restriction on the use of sports celebrities and superstar athletes, and we want to ban these sports betting ads.

    Thank you, Mr. Subban. You may elaborate during the question and answer session.

    Now we go to the question and answer session, beginning with Mr. Lemire for the Bloc Québécois.

    Sébastien, you have six minutes. Go ahead, please.

    Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Ms. Auch, thank you very much for your testimony. Under the circumstances, I think that your call for an independent public inquiry is quite legitimate and necessary.

    I'd like to hear your opinion on another recommendation the committee heard, one that, in my opinion, makes a great deal of sense after hearing testimony such as yours. It would be to remove the sports portfolio from Heritage Canada, which obviously aims to promote pride in Canada, and integrate it into Health Canada, in order to promote sports as part of a healthy lifestyle and as accessible to all. What do you think of this important proposal by committee?

     I have always wondered why sport is in the Department of Heritage. It would be better placed, it seems, in the health portfolio in Canada. I think it is a source of pride, obviously, but that comes every four years—one for summer and one for winter, so every two years—and that's just for a few.

    To me, the biggest benefit of sport is mental and physical health and well-being, so why isn't it in the health portfolio? I guess maybe sport is afraid of not getting enough in that portfolio. It should definitely have its own portfolio. It is important. It is such a critically important part of the life of a child to be able to play and do sport, and the fact that it's not in its own portfolio is always shocking to me, for sure.

    Indeed, that is the question.

     Given your experience and involvement, I'd like you to tell us about the following phenomenon. There seems to be a closed community of experts, when it comes to the people working within the various organizations, such as the Office of the Sport Integrity Commissioner, the Canadian Olympic committee and Own the Podium. Indeed, experience working in a similar field seems to confer a significant advantage to being able to work in another. This means that sports culture never changes, because those people are trained using a cookie cutter approach. But that cookie cutter has contributed to creating a culture of silence and pressure on athletes to perform, which has led to cases of abuse.

    Does that situation mean that, as a committee, we need to report those facts to ensure that changes are made to how we value the résumés of the people we want to put in positions of authority over athletes?

     A national inquiry would definitely bring out some of these negative things that keep happening.

     I saw the new Boxing Canada CEO speaking at the committee last week. He is a 10-year veteran of Own the Podium. He was their high-performance adviser. Those advisers were, unbelievably, bullying me, as a CEO of the organization, and also my staff. As high-performance directors, they cost a lot of money. I don't understand.

    You're right. There is a revolving door. There needs to be more discretion, I think, in terms of where the persons came from, why they left the last organization they were with, and what happened in that organization. I talked about a CEO who allowed a sexual assault to basically be exposed in the most minimal possible way, because he was friends with those people in the car. He then gets hired by another NSO, by GymCan, and now we see all the problems at GymCan.

    These people cannot just be quiet, because they want to keep their jobs and have organizations such as Own the Podium and COC rehire them and place them in new organizations because they threaten the CEOs who don't want to give in and be puppets. They threaten them with funding losses. It is an epidemic in sport right now.

    The NSOs could actually help the grassroots level if they were allowed to function the way those mostly well-meaning CEOs would like them to function when they get into sport. We get bullied into focusing on medals at all cost.

    Thank you very much.

    Mr. Subban, thank you for testifying and for enlightening us on the dangers of sports betting, which can put pressure on athletes. Can you tell us more about the risks, particularly for young people, associated with legalizing—allowing and promoting this kind of betting on a broader level? What are the potential repercussions for athletes?

    When I started out in education and I was in a social gathering, the conversation was always about the teacher, or something that happened in school. I then got into the hockey arena, and in these social settings, the conversation was about the hockey coach, or the hockey problem. Do you know what's happening now? The conversation is about gambling.

    Oftentimes when I'm speaking to parents, it's about the impact that gambling is having on the future of our young people. The CAMH here in Ontario shared, in its review of literature, that “there is a causal relationship between people’s exposure to gambling advertising and their intentions to gamble”.

    One of the issues.... A parent just shared this with me. An alcoholic can stay away from that environment. If you don't like tobacco smoke, you can just do things to separate yourself from it. When it comes to gambling, you can't really get away from it, especially if you're addicted to it.

    Thank you, Mr. Subban.

    Thank you very much.

    Thank you, Sébastien.

    I will now go to the New Democrats, with Peter Julian for six minutes.

     Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

    Thank you to our witnesses.

    Ms. Auch, thank you for all of your contributions to Canadian sport.

    I'm saddened by your testimony. It is heartbreaking to hear what you went through. I think it's even more disturbing when you talk about the various levels, where even if a national sport organization endeavours to change. What I hear you saying is that, essentially, there are layers of protection for the status quo and to maintain the kinds of abuses that take place with Canadian athletes, for other organizations that help to fund those national sport organizations. Really, when you talk about the importance of having a national inquiry, it is very much, I think, because of those systemic problems.

    To what extent has the fact that you have other funding organizations that try to cover up abuses that are taking place created the crisis we're seeing now in Canadian sports?

    Honestly, I don't think they have attempted to cover it up; they have covered it up. I think it's a crisis.

    I was asked to become the CEO by the board at the time. I had no intention of ever working in sport. I did it in an interim position and was very fulfilled at the beginning, but I had unbelievably high pressure from Own the Podium to keep a certain staff member who was absolutely not following our rules. Had I not stuck to my guns, we would not have changed at all. I would have just stayed in the sport system, been the CEO, toed the line and been quiet. This happens every day, I think, but I pushed it and said, “No, we're not continuing with this when this culture is a problem.”

    Own the Podium basically threatened me right after that with an intervention. It set up a high-performance management group and barred me from it, in my own organization, in exchange for funds. We would not have received the same funding. We were threatened with losing funding, which is a critical thing for our athletes. Our athletes get this funding and are finally able to perform on a world stage at the highest level.

    There are two sets of funding in the national sport organizations. There is the reference level, which supports the activities of the national organization, promoting the sport in the country, doing the administration of it and all those things. There are the excellence funds as well. The reference level hasn't changed in 30 years. The excellence funds came along before Vancouver. I think they were of good intention, but they've gone way out of control.

     Own the Podium wants to control everything, and it is a massive problem in sport right now.

    What you're saying is that there is a huge power imbalance. You spoke very explicitly to that. Sport Canada hasn't played a role at all, certainly for the reference funding.

     What I hear you say is that the funding for excellence compounds the problem because there isn't any oversight. Sport Canada, up until now, has basically given a blank cheque to organizations. We've seen that repeatedly. That power imbalance with the use of the funding seems to be a major problem.

    The funding isn't the problem. The funding could be better managed by the actual national sport organization, and it should be. We should have outside organizations that we can rely on for support, but not for instruction on what we can do with it, or what we have to do with it or face losing it. That's the problem.

    The reference level funding does have decent guidelines. The reporting system to the federal government is exceptionally difficult. I think something along the lines of a national Canadian sport council that is separate from the federal government—get rid of Own the Podium and give less power to the Canadian Olympic Committee—would probably be much better. The sports can go to them for support, as opposed to begging and sucking up for funding that should be theirs anyway.

     They're just taking another layer of bureaucracy by having all these multi-sport organizations that want to be experts of that specific sport organization.

     I have two final questions, as my time is coming to an end.

    First off, your story about mediation where the victim is basically forced to sit down with the perpetrator to find some resolution, I find unbelievable. It is irresponsible of any organization to do that. Obviously, a national inquiry is something that is essential to finding out other stories like yours, which we've certainly been hearing, where victims have been forced to try to mediate, to accept the perpetrator. Then you have the NDA, which muzzles victims. This is an impossible situation for victims.

    Absolutely. Mediation should never, ever be done in sexual harassment or abuse cases. Without a doubt, there is no benefit to that.

    Thank you very much, Peter. Your time is up.

     How much time do we have left in this hour, Madam Clerk? Do we have time for a second round?

    We have until 12:10. We have about 20 minutes left.

    Thank you.

    All right. We will go to our second round.

    Madam Chair, how many witnesses do we have in the second section?

    The Chair: We have three.

    Mr. Michael Coteau: Okay. Thank you.

    This is a five-minute round.

    We begin with Kevin.

    Madam Chair, thank you very much.

    Thank you, Ms. Auch.

     We watched you for several years. Speed skating is of course very closely tied to Winnipeg and Saskatoon. We had Catriona Le May Doan, of course, competing with you. You were in the 500 metres and you did very well for us in Lillehammer and in Japan, which was great.

     Own the Podium, if you don't mind my saying, as former broadcaster.... When we were preparing for the Calgary Olympics in 1988, and then when we saw what that gave the country, it was a sense of pride back in 1988, and of course you know very well what the Vancouver Olympics did in 2010.

    At the time Own the Podium came on, it was all about medals. I agree with you, but when you're hosting the winter Olympics, as we did in Calgary and Vancouver, it's very important to get on the podium. I listened to what you said about Own the Podium, but I disagree in one way. In 2010, we needed Canadian athletes and teams to be on the podium. I think it gave this country a sense of pride. I know that you weren't involved—I don't think you were involved in 2010—but I would like to hear your thoughts on Own the Podium and what it was supposed to do, more than anything, in 2010 for Vancouver.

    As I said, the intentions of Own the Podium were excellent. I was actually a commentator with TSN, with the conglomerate in Vancouver, for short track. I was there, and I experienced that as probably one of my most enjoyable Olympics.

    The money, as I said, is not the problem. The problem is that Own the Podium has evolved since 2005, I think, when it came into action. At that point, we had high-performance directors frustrated with the interference a little bit, but they didn't have high-performance advisers assigned to sports and designed to tell the experts in those sports exactly what they had to do with the money.

     The amount of work our high-performance directors do to try to please Own the Podium is incredible. The experts in our sport are our hired high-performance directors. Own the Podium could have a place, but not the way it is right now. It is absolutely an organization that interferes and bullies national sport organizations unless you toe the line.

    Again, a national inquiry would expose all of this. It would allow us to see if there is some sort of organization that might work better than an Own the Podium type.

    For sure, I agree with you. Medals are exciting when we have a home Olympics, and we want them, but that—

     We do, but you said to get rid of Own the Podium and set up a sports council. We have some sports councils in our provinces, so what would that look like if you set up a sports council and got rid of the OTP?

    I'm not saying to get rid of OTP outright. Part of OTP does benefit us, but it overlaps with the Canadian sport institutes, the coaching associations and all those other multi-sport organizations.

    I think what would be helpful.... What I was frustrated with was the lack of nimbleness that a Sport Canada-type federal organization can handle. My only experience is with Alberta, when I got into real estate and instead of the Alberta Securities Commission guiding the real estate in Alberta, it had the Real Estate Council of Alberta, which was able to be a little bit at arm's length from the government organizations, so it could function the way it needed to in order to be as efficient and cost-effective as possible, but it was also nimble at making decisions and being there to support the organizations it was supposed to be supporting.

    I think one of the problems is that we get very bureaucratic in Canada. I'm not sure why sport is governed by a federal organization, as opposed to a council. I think that would be a much better thing. Again, a national inquiry would answer so many of these questions. I don't have all the answers, for sure. I am not an expert in this realm.

    Okay—

    You have 27 seconds.

    We've talked around the table. We want former athletes involved. You were involved. I mean, you were a great athlete for our country. Then you went on as a board member, and then you went on as president. Why did you get forced out in October 2022?

     The sport system does not want athletes involved, not at the volunteer or staff levels. That's a farce. I was prejudiced against because an athlete can't possibly know enough about running an organization. A woman athlete and a woman president who was an athlete can't possibly know how to run a sport organization.

    It's not what you think. We are not that wanted once we're done with sport. We are very wanted when we're athletes, but we're not that wanted for our expertise once we're done.

    Thank you, Ms. Auch.

    Now we go to the Liberals.

     Michael, you have five minutes, please.

    Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Thank you to our witnesses here today.

    My question is going to be for Mr. Subban.

    It's nice to see you, sir. It's interesting. I was thinking that we worked at the school board together, and we worked provincially together, and here we are in this forum, so it's nice to see you again.

    The issue you brought up is a very important issue, and I agree with you 100%, but I want to tap into some other expertise. I know that you were there building the sport strategy for Ontario. I know you're a successful educator, a principal and the father of three NHL players.

    I'll just remind you of a little story. I don't know if you remember this, but about a decade ago I called you, because a coach called me. The coach had some problems. He had a young Black player who kept being harassed. The N-word was constantly being used. The coach called me and asked me to speak to him. I said, “You know, Karl would be better equipped to talk to this young man.” It's an issue that you and I have talked about many times.

    With safe sport, racism obviously has a place in this conversation. We haven't had a lot of experts come in to talk about this, but could you, from your experience, talk about the current state of hockey, in particular when it comes to racism, if you're okay doing that?

     Thank you. It's nice seeing you again.

    In terms of racism in sport, obviously when we started out we did not look like the typical hockey family. There were so many obstacles in our way. Obviously, one was our skin colour. When we started out with P.K., my first son, everyone knew who P.K.'s parents were because we were the only people of colour in the arena. Things have changed, you know. When my last son, Jordan Subban, was drafted to the OHL, I think there were 17 kids of colour that year. That's good.

    Unfortunately, there is still this lingering problem in the arena. Obviously, cost is a problem and, obviously, racism is a problem. The GTHL struck an independent committee. I was one of a number of people on that committee who came up with 44 recommendations for how we can make the sport more welcoming and safer for the growing diversity of people in our arenas.

    I'm going to share this with you. It was 1970 when I came to Canada. I didn't like this new home environment. When I looked out the window, I didn't see anyone who looked like me. They didn't speak like me because all the kids on my street spoke French. But those same kids invited me to play hockey with them.

    I think, in some ways, that spirit is missing in our arenas today. I think we're taking steps. I think Hockey Canada is the leader, and I think it is moving us in the right direction. I think hockey organizations around Canada are taking steps to move us in the right direction.

    You know, I sit on the GTHL board of directors. I sit in the hearings. I know that when these issues come up, we have stuff in place not only to educate, but to continue to communicate to everyone that hockey is for everyone.

    I think things are getting better, but we're not where we need to be yet. It's not just racism, but also the cost.

    I'm going to jump in for one last point.

    If there is any information you have on sport betting that you want to submit officially to the committee—anything that you think would be valuable that we can consider in our final report—please do that.

    Thank you very much. It's nice to see you, sir.

    Thank you for having me.

    Our committee is preparing a longer brief for everyone.

    Thank you for that.

    Thank you.

    Please send any information to the clerk. The clerk will pass it on to us.

    I now go to Mr. Lemire for two and a half minutes, please.

    Thank you.

    Ms. Auch, I'd like to hear your comments on the evolution over the past 10, 15 or 20 years, of funding structures and the will to give more space to women's sports, as well as female coaches, administrators and athletes. As things currently stand, can we conclude that the effort has been relatively successful, or rather, is it a failure? Is the funding going to the right places?

    I think the financing is going to the right place.

    One challenge I had specifically was the unwillingness of our board to recommend women or BIPOC people, which was very frustrating to me. I actually spoke in a course with six of our board members about a month before I was terminated. The man—the teacher—asked me why I thought it was difficult for our board, which had seven men and one woman on it at the time, to attract diverse populations. My answer was that they don't see diversity as being as important as skills.

    Why we have to choose between one and the other is beyond me. We've had great BIPOC candidates and women—Olympians—apply. Instead, the SSC board nominated a man from Colombia. Now we spend thousands of dollars bringing in this man from Colombia, rather than a former Olympian woman from Calgary.

    Boards have to be held accountable. It's difficult for CEOs, who are their employees, to combat them if they truly don't want to co-operate with the funding requirements that CEOs try to co-operate with.

    How should directives be given? I'm thinking of Sport Canada in the current context and of the minister's desire to reform funding for sports federations. What actions could be taken to ensure diversity at both the board and senior management levels, so that decisions are made without sexism.

     Well, I think boards need to be held accountable to the report cards that Sport Canada judges them at.

    Sport Canada didn't hold our board accountable at all. They just ignored the report card and didn't do anything about it.

    That is one way to do it. You know, I—

    Thank you very much.

    Thank you. The time is up, Sébastien.

    Peter Julian, you have two and a half minutes, please.

    Thank you very much.

    Mr. Subban, I think one recurring theme over the last year that we've been investigating when looking for recommendations around safe sport is the power that money has had in disrupting, in a very real sense, the system and not putting in place all of the elements required for safe sport. In a sense, money has flowed freely without any sorts of checks and balances.

     Is this not part of your message to us, to this committee and to Canadians, that we really need safeguards? Having gambling ads, for example, helps to bring more unchecked money into the sport system without, on the other side, having the safe sport foundation in place.

    Yes. I agree with you 100%.

    We need to have more checks and balances in place to monitor, for example, the volume of ads. We know what it's doing. I read somewhere that it's like we're spoon-feeding the addiction to young people because we don't have enough restrictions in place.

    Yes, absolutely.

    My final question to you is in relation to safe sport. Given your long and very distinguished career, are there other recommendations you can offer us on things that need to be put into place to ensure not only that athletes are safe at all times, but also that the public—as we've seen some of the horrendous allegations about Hockey Canada—is protected as well?

    Yes. The reasons are there.

    In the U.K., where betting legislation has expanded since 2005, people are speaking out. From what they are saying, it's a public health disaster waiting to happen here in Canada. If people are not concerned about that, then I'm not sure where their priorities lie.

    We want to restrict the volume. We don't want to see these superstars and celebrities in these ads promoting it, especially to our young people.

    Thank you, Mr. Subban. I think the time is up.

    I want to thank both of you, Ms. Auch and Mr. Subban, for being witnesses at this meeting today.

    We're going to suspend until we get the next panel going. Thank you very much.

    I shall begin by quickly doing some housekeeping for everyone.

     We have Tara McNeil and Stephen Norris, who are both here on behalf of Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton. Then we have Rugby Canada, with Nathan Bombrys and Ashley Lewis; and we have Skate Canada, with Debra Armstrong as the CEO.

    For those of you attending virtually, there's a little globe at the bottom of your screen. That's your interpretation. You can press it to get your language of choice.

    You have five minutes to present, and the five minutes are for the organization and not per person. You're going to have to share your time or have one of you be the only speaker. Then we have a question and answer session.

    I shall begin with Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton.

     Who is going to be speaking for you?

     I will.

    All right.

    Ms. McNeil, you have five minutes, please.

    Thank you, Madam Chair, for the invitation to appear before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to discuss the history of Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton and our path forward for the organization.

    I'm Tara McNeil, and I'm the current president of the BCS board of directors. I'm joining you today with fellow board member and respected sport leader Stephen Norris.

    I took over as president just a short while ago, in November 2022, after accepting the nomination from our athlete membership community to let my name stand after a difficult couple of years for the two sledding sports in Canada. I took on this volunteer responsibility because I truly care about the physical and psychological safety of all our athletes, coaches, staff, volunteer officials, and anyone and everyone who's remotely connected to the sport.

    Please let me reinforce that one safe sport issue is one too many. I, along with the newly developed board of directors, lead by ensuring that everyone at BCS now operates in a culture of respect, fairness, and kindness. This is completely non-negotiable.

    Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to create, nurture and support world and Olympic champions. In addition to our coaches, we have a lean organization with only two full-time staff members, one part-time staff member, and two consultants. Our small but mighty team takes great pride in our rich history over the years at the Olympic Winter Games, dating back to 1964.

    A tradition of excellence was created with nearly six decades of sustained medal-winning performances. These high-profile women and men, representing Canadians from coast to coast, are integral members of their communities. They are role models for youth, inspiring all of us to be better at school, business, home, community, wherever we are. It is our belief that every athlete achieving their personal goals through a healthy and enjoyable journey is also a vehicle for developing a healthier population and a more united Canada.

    Yes, we have succeeded on the field of play, but, as with any mission, there are many hurdles to overcome and struggles to endure. It's no secret that our organization has had its share of challenges over the last number of years, operating without a day-to-day chief executive officer, and we're now at a crossroads. Trust from partners has been broken, and relationships damaged. It's now time to shape our new vision for the future of our sport organization.

    Rebranding with new values will come, but right now our focus is on restoring the basics: providing operational stability, implementing good governance practices, ensuring BCS is complying with the Canadian sport governance code, and creating a supportive culture that ensures wellness for all participants, including athletes, coaches, staff, board members, volunteers, and officials.

    While working with our national sport partners, including Sport Canada, it has been our top priority at BCS to work together to rebuild trust and healthy relationships within and outside of our organization, and at the same time re-establish a strong foundation for the creation of a more promising and sustainable future on and off the track. The newly formed board of directors today is committed to this pursuit, and we will get this right.

    In addition to delivering the critical resources our athletes and coaches need to train and compete safely on the field of play, we are equally committed to ensuring that our dedicated staff have the day-to-day operational leadership support they require to achieve our collective long-term operational and performance goals in a fun and enjoyable environment that is welcoming, supportive and inclusive.

    Our path forward to re-establish trust, accountability and relationships was outlined on Friday in a meeting between our Sport Canada partners and the board of directors, followed by a subsequent meeting with our athletes. I come out of this meeting with a clear mandate from Sport Canada outlining what we need to deliver on to get us where we need to collectively go. Specific conditions have been established, rightly so, by Sport Canada to ensure there's appropriate oversight for public funding. We have work to do to get our operations and governance in order.

    Our immediate priority is to rebuild the trust of our partners, to ensure the board's commitment to operational stability and participant wellness across our sports, and to immediately recruit an executive director. This work has already begun, and we're looking to finalize this search very quickly.

    Equally important are good governance practices and ensuring that BCS is compliant with the Canadian sport governance code. Once we have our operations and board of directors fully in place, we will be working to fully adopt all governance principles in the Canadian sport governance code by 2025, as requested by Sport Canada. This will also require further review of all our bylaws.

    In closing, Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton knows that participant wellness, both physical and psychological, is a prerequisite to everyone achieving their goals. We know our athletes want to achieve their performance goals on the international stage. For some, this means standing on the podium. For others, winning is equally important. The support of a welcoming high-performance space is the most critical piece.

     The health and well-being of all our people in the community throughout the performance pathway are the most important.

    Significant work remains ahead of us, but I assure you that change is happening. Creating a healthier, safer and more inclusive place for all is, and always will be, our top priority moving forward. We will hold everyone accountable for putting our people first and treating all with respect, fairness and kindness. This is not a choice, and we will never settle for good enough.

    Thank you.

    Thank you very much, Ms. McNeil.

    I now go to Rugby Canada.

    Mr. Bombrys, you have five minutes, please.

    Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee.

    Thank you very much for inviting me today.

    On behalf of Rugby Canada, I would like to thank the committee for its ongoing work to make sport in Canada better and safer for everyone.

    Our mission at Rugby Canada is to provide lifelong rugby experiences to clubs and communities across the nation that will inspire participation by people of all ages, abilities, genders and ethnic backgrounds so that they may be healthy and active and contribute to their communities, whether that be through playing rugby, coaching, officiating, volunteering or supporting.

    In rugby, we pride ourselves on being a sport for people of all physical shapes and sizes, as well as a sport with strong values of integrity, passion, solidarity, discipline and respect. We have over 38,000 registered people involved in our sport across Canada. We are also responsible for fielding our women's and men's national teams in both traditional 15-a-side rugby and the sevens rugby format that you see in the Olympic Games.

    We desire that all people involved in rugby have healthy, enjoyable and rewarding experiences in our sport. We believe that for our elite players and teams to represent Canada to the best of their abilities, we must provide a safe and supportive environment for them to prepare, train and compete. We are committed to a never-ending journey of putting the safety and well-being of our players and participants at the centre of what we do each and every day. We are working to create a culture of continuous improvement, where we listen as well as educate, and where we care as well as perform.

    In the past, our organization has encountered conduct that didn't align with our values. These experiences drove us to embark on a journey of significant change, designed to transform Rugby Canada into a better-governed, more transparent, better-resourced and more effective national sport organization. Some of these actions include an overhaul of our governance structure and transitioning to a skills-based board led by our chair Sally Dennis, who is the first woman to chair Rugby Canada. We have two athlete directors on our board—one male, one female—elected by the Canadian Rugby Players Association.

     Following the conclusion of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the board of Rugby Canada commissioned an independent high-performance review in response to on-field and off-field challenges faced by the organization. The findings from that review were published in March 2022 and included 12 recommendations to improve the culture, structure and strategy of Rugby Canada. In July 2022, Rugby Canada made a leadership change and asked me to join the organization as CEO.

    Good governance and fiscal responsibility are the foundation of high-performance sport. We have invested in our organizational capacity as a governing body by creating new roles and filling gaps in our organization, including a senior director of finance and business services, a human resources manager and a high-performance director to lead the performances across all of Rugby Canada's national teams.

     Our director of governance and regulations, Ashley Lewis, who joined us in January, is here today to support Rugby Canada and the committee with your review, and has been outstanding in helping our organization understand how we can better govern our sport. With Ashley's leadership, we have updated our policies and procedures across the organization, including the incorporation of our status as a signatory to OSIC. We have adopted a reconciliation, equity, accessibility, diversity and inclusion policy, developed by our independent ethics and integrity committee, and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Canadian Rugby Players Association. We are currently engaged in discussions with the CRPA on a new collective agreement for our players.

    We have regular dialogue between our players and leaders within our organization. I have personally spent time with all of our national teams and engaged with our women's and men's teams collectively. We are currently writing a new strategic plan for Rugby Canada to set the direction for our organization over the next several years as we build toward the North American Rugby World Cup in 2031 and 2033.

    I feel we have made some real progress, but we know these steps are just the beginning. We now need to find the necessary resources so that we can do more to support our teams, players and community.

    After the months of important and, no doubt, difficult work that you have conducted as a committee, I feel that out of respect to you and to our players I should finish by talking about some of the good that sport and rugby bring to communities across Canada. It was a long, hard pandemic, but rugby has returned. Canadians are coming together to play rugby, be healthy, exercise, connect with their friends and teammates, compete and then shake hands and share some camaraderie after the game. This is rugby.

    Your Canadian national teams are filled with some outstanding young people. They are some of the most impressive young men and women I have ever been associated with. You should be proud of them. In particular, your women's national team is one of the best in the world. I had the good fortune to spend some time with them at the Rugby World Cup last autumn in New Zealand. These young women are not just outstanding rugby players, but outstanding young people and outstanding Canadians.

    We're hosting a major women's international tournament here in Ottawa in July. I invite each member of the committee to attend and spend some time with these women. I assure you that they will inspire you as they do me. They will make you proud to be Canadian.

     Respectfully, they deserve our support.

    Thank you for continuing your work to improve sport in Canada. We still have much to do.

    Thank you for your attention.

    Thank you, Mr. Bombrys.

    I'm going to go to Skate Canada.

     Ms. Armstrong, you have five minutes, please.

     Thank you, Madam Chair, for the invitation to appear before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

    My name is Debra Armstrong and I am the chief executive officer of Skate Canada. It's a role I have held since November 2016.

    Skate Canada is a not-for-profit national sport organization that is focused on teaching Canadians to skate. Our programs are delivered by 1,200 skating clubs and schools and thousands of coaches across our country. Last year, we supported 200,000 registrants to lace up their skates through our programs. If athletes wish to pursue further skills, they can enter our figure skating pathway as a recreational or competitive athlete.

    We are proud of the community of skaters we have created. We always strive to create a safe and inclusive environment. Any violations or misconduct is unacceptable in our sport.

    As a mother of three daughters, all of whom participated in sport, and now a grandmother to three children, I can say that the issue of abuse in sport is not only part of my professional life, but of huge importance in my personal life. I know from personal experience with my children that sport well done has a positive impact and helps children grow self-confidence as they become young adults. Unfortunately, we know that not everyone has had the same outcome and that for many, their experience in sport has been extremely damaging to their well-being.

    What is special about sport is that it has the power to inspire, from the local level to the world stage. From the backyard to the Olympic Games, sport touches many of us on different levels. I truly want everyone to be able to enjoy sport in a safe environment and benefit from the positive experiences and life lessons that sport can offer.

    Skate Canada knows that safety in sport is critical to all that we do. We recognize that historically our policies and processes were not as robust as necessary to address bullying, harassment, abuse and discrimination. We have made progress in that area.

    In 2019, we launched a reformatted national safe sport program. This update also included the adoption of the universal code of conduct to prevent and address maltreatment in sport into all of our policies and procedures.

    Since 2020, all matters related to misconduct at Skate Canada have been managed by Skate-Safe, a misconduct reporting system that is operated by IntegrityCounts, which is a third party service provider. Complaints received through Skate-Safe are submitted to an independent external case manager to ensure that there is an independent review, investigation and disposition. All of our registrants, their parents and guardians, and our members from across the country have access to this mechanism.

    In 2022, Skate Canada signed with Abuse-Free Sport. Abuse-Free Sport will handle all misconduct complaints for individuals who are part of our national team and our next-gen programs. That includes athletes, coaches, team leaders, staff and integrated support team members. Abuse-Free Sport will also be the reporting system for the Skate Canada board of directors and international officials.

    It takes courage for victims of abuse to share and report their experiences. We commend everyone who has testified during these hearings. We also want to acknowledge that some individuals in our sport are not comfortable coming forward. We confirm our commitment to making sport safer so that we are able to rebuild those relationships. Trust must be earned, and we hope to restore that trust.

    Sport, like many institutions, has systemic issues. Skate Canada is listening to feedback from those negatively impacted and will continue to improve our education, training, policy and procedure frameworks as we work to eliminate these barriers in sport. We will also support and incorporate lessons learned along the journey to be better, including the findings from these hearings.

    Considerable work remains ahead of us, and we are prepared to put in the effort. We will hold ourselves accountable and be vulnerable as we make skating more inclusive and a safer place for all. As a community, we must provide an environment where everyone is respected, valued and supported to reach their full potential so that, in our case, they can truly experience the joy of skating.

    Thank you, Madam Chair.

     Thank you, Ms. Armstrong.

    Now, everyone, we have votes coming up. I think there are 30-minute bells that are going to begin soon. We may only have time for one round of questioning.

    I shall begin with the questions, which will be for six minutes. We'll begin with Mrs. Thomas, as the first Conservative up.

    You have six minutes, please.

    Thank you, Chair.

    My first question is for Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton and Ms. McNeil.

    It came to our attention that more than 80 athletes have called for the resignation of the former president, Sarah Storey. It's my understanding that many of the individuals who wrote that letter championed you to come forward and offer leadership to the organization.

     I can appreciate that you want to reform the culture. Some of the allegations that came forward from by those 80-plus athletes were against Chris Le Bihan, who currently serves as the high-performance director. He has served in that role for quite some time. He's still there. I'm curious, then. If you're looking to transform the culture of the organization—you've now signed on with Abuse-Free Sport and OSIC—does it not concern you that you have this individual still within the organization with all of these allegations against him?

    Thank you for your questions.

    I can say unreservedly that this has been an incredibly complex issue.

    I'll start by saying, first of all, that when I came in, I said right away that I was going to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, although I knew those allegations were in place. The individual you're speaking about had expressed deep concern that he was the recipient of abuse and was treated unfairly. It was my first week on the job when I discovered that. We went into an organizational crisis, really, truthfully, to ascertain what was going on and what was coming down the pike.

     I had countless meetings with our partners and legal counsel about this to investigate what to do to best support the staff, because they reported that they had a very harrowing experience at the hands of the athletes. Imagine my surprise and concern about all of this. With that, we sought careful legal counsel as to how to manage all of the circumstances. We were in daily contact with our sport partners as to how to manage this. We brought on an interim CEO as quickly as possible, to be able to do a very extensive deep dive into the staffing concerns. At the same time, to be frank, our assets were frozen. Our finances were frozen. We didn't have access to even understanding how to put staff on leave.

    We've had a very challenging time, but we're in the process right now of working towards a new staffing plan. Largely, that's in the hands of.... There are some changes with our sport partners right now. We've—

    Thank you. I'm sorry. In the interest of time, I'll keep going.

     I guess my question is this, then: Now that you've signed on with OSIC, where's the accountability? Has Sport Canada reached out to you in this regard? You have more than 80 athletes who have signed a letter of concern or who have issued concerns here. Has Sport Canada reached out to you? Has there been any accountability from them?

    Specifically, we've had discussions about that almost on a weekly basis. We—

    Is that with Sport Canada?

    Yes, it's with members of Sport Canada and Own the Podium.

    We had an outstanding legal case to be resolved, the Kaillie Humphries case. That investigation was affecting the parties concerned. It had put us in a place of not being able to make decisions readily without legal consequences. We have been awaiting the ruling from that particular case, which, from my understanding—

    Thank you.

    I appreciate that you brought up Ms. Humphries, because of course she was Canada's best bobsledder and she chose to go to the United States of America because of the abuse she experienced. Those allegations were not taken seriously, so she went south of the border, and I think that's to Canada's shame.

    Now that you are a signatory to OSIC and a signatory to Abuse-Free Sport, what changes do you see being made in the future in terms of the accountability mechanism that takes place with Sport Canada?

     We have instituted an immediate athlete communications pathway whereby the athletes have direct contact with all members of our sport partners, our community. We've been meeting with them regularly to ascertain what they need for safety and security. In fact, that started the week I started: meeting with the athletes, talking about them and figuring out what we can do.

    In the interim, given our complex situation, to support them in the daily training environment, we've made allowances to make sure that we have separation from key individuals who were concerned and affected until we could have clarity, legally, around the alleged abuse in the Humphries case.

    I'm being honest. Our hands were tied in being able to deal with this. There has to be a formal complaint and a third party investigation completed by Chris, so we've been left with a bit of a struggle. I've spoken to the minister personally about this and what we can do.

    I'm not going to mince words. We're struggling, but we're bringing in resources right now with an executive director and legal counsel to help us support a transition.

    I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

    I apologize to Mrs. Thomas for interrupting, but the bells are ringing, so I'm hoping there is unanimous consent that we get through this round of questions.

    I see no one disagreeing, so thank you very much, Chris, for that.

    I now go to the Liberals and Anthony Housefather.

    Anthony, you have six minutes, please.

    Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It's much appreciated.

    Ms. McNeil, my first question is for you again, so if you wouldn't mind coming back.... I want to thank my friend Rachael for having asked the questions I was going to ask.

    I do think you're a bit of a hero for actually agreeing to step up to become president of Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton in this situation.

    Do you have any existing NDAs in place with athletes that preclude them from speaking publicly?

    No, not that I'm aware of.

    Perfect.

    I want to ask both Skate Canada and Rugby Canada the same question.

    Not that I'm aware of.

    Not that I'm aware of, no.

    A lot of the issues, of course, have involved abuse by coaches, allegations about coaches.

    In our investigation of Soccer Canada, we saw that there was no coherent policy that once the national organization became aware that a coach was committing infractions that led to suspension or termination, anybody across the country became aware of the fact that this coach should not be hired, leading to coaches popping up in other provinces.

    Ms. McNeil, could you speak about what policy you now have related to coaches so that—it's a smaller sport; there are fewer coaches in the sport—everybody would know if they shouldn't hire a coach?

    We are in the process of rewriting all of those policies. We've submitted some to OSIC in terms of signing on as a signatory.

    At present, we are enacting right away, at the end of June, our emergency mental health plan through Game Plan, whereby we are having organizational counselling to understand managing organization trauma and how it has affected people's perceptions and mental health, how they treat each other, how they treat themselves, and how they allow themselves to be treated.

    We have also enlisted a whole-of-mental-health performance psychology group that will be working individually with coaches and athletes to talk about appropriate interactions. They've created a handbook for us, which reads a lot like a first aid or CPR manual: “If this is said, this is what you do; this is where you go.” We're going to be having a deep-dive instruction, like a course, if you will—

    I get that education is really important, but my question is very specific: If you find out that there is a coach in any place whom you have decided to suspend or terminate, is there a national list that everyone in your sport has access to in order to know not to hire that coach?

    We don't have a specific policy about that yet, but we are working on it.

    Ms. Armstrong, your sport is, obviously, much more evolved in this. It's a much more well-funded sport, and it has more concrete policies in place. You have a unique situation where athletes hire their own coaches, and coaches are not necessarily working with entire teams but, at a higher level, with two, three or four athletes.

    Can you talk about what you have done with respect to protecting athletes if you determine that a coach has engaged in misconduct?

     Thank you very much for the question.

    We have a public registry of sanctioned and/or permanently expelled coaches. We also have the “coach in good standing” tool, which all of our clubs across the country have access to. If a coach is sanctioned—i.e., temporarily or permanently expelled—we immediately notify the provincial and territorial sport organization and all clubs in that jurisdiction. As I mentioned, everyone in our system has access to our public registry.

    I appreciate that very much, because it's kind of unique.

    Ms. Armstrong, I also noted in your board minutes that you have discussions at the national board level about requests for reinstatement. It doesn't just get buried by a staff member. You are discussing it at the board.

    Yes, that's correct.

    Our particular position is that our membership is very important to us. If we are going to make a decision to expel and ultimately reintegrate someone, it is important for the board of directors of Skate Canada to opine on that decision.

    I agree. It is a good model of governance, which I appreciated when I was reading through your board minutes. Your minutes are very detailed and very impressive in terms of how you handle that, versus the other sport organizations I've seen in the country thus far.

    To Rugby Canada, you recently had an issue with a coach. Could you talk to us about whether or not there's a public registry?

    We have a sanction list available on our website that shows.... We have a list on Rugby Canada's website.

    That's fantastic.

    I'm hoping that Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton will hear that and take that step as well.

    Madam Chair, I think my time is probably up now. Is that correct?

    You have one minute left, Anthony. It's a six-minute round.

    Oh, thank you, Madam Chair.

    I have one last question, for Skate Canada.

    One issue that has come up—I know this is somewhat away from the safe sport issue—is the idea of how people are chosen for national teams, and the subjectivity involved, for example, when you can override a decision of who came first or second at nationals to determine who goes to the Olympics. I am wondering whether Skate Canada has any comments on trying to create a more objective process, rather than the subjective one that has existed to date.

    We have transparently posted selection criteria for all national and international championship events, which we make available to all of our athletes. You are correct that there are a series of different events that go into the determination of that.

     The good news about figure skating is that competitions are determined by scores, so we have objective criteria that factor into the overall consideration. We make the criteria publicly available to all of our athletes so they're aware of how decisions are made.

    Thank you so much.

    Thank you, Ms. Armstrong.

    I'm going to ask the clerk how we're doing for time, because I wanted to go, for 12 minutes, to Mr. Julian and Mr. Lemire.

    Chair, there are 20 minutes remaining until the vote. If you take 12 away, that would give us eight. I think people are willing to wait.

    Okay, that's great. Thank you.

    We will go to Mr. Lemire.

    Sébastien, you have six minutes, please.

    Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Ms. Armstrong, I'd like to know more about what you did to question athletes. As we understand it, on April 27, 2023, you received a complaint from figure skaters against coaches at the former BC Centre of Excellence, a club now known as the Champs International Skating Centre. Within your organization, did you speak with the board of directors about apparent problems involving those coaches?

    You were referring to the letter we received from Figure Skating for Change Canada on April 27. This matter was brought to the attention of the board of directors of Skate Canada. We immediately responded to the open letter. It is an open letter that is anonymous. It does not name any particular athletes.

     We are very disturbed when allegations like this come to our attention. We immediately provided links to Skate-Safe, as well as to Abuse-Free Sport. We then took the initiative to send the information that we received in that open letter on the 27th directly to Skate-Safe, our investigator. We have no knowledge of what has happened since we sent it there.

    We have an ongoing dialogue with Figure Skating for Change. We are hopeful that we can work together with them to ensure that any of these allegations—we had no previous knowledge of the allegations—are thoroughly investigated.

    Thank you for your answer.

    Did the complaint change the everyday lives of athletes or the organization, as well as your relationship with them? For example, in January, social media was flooded with sympathetic messages for a young athlete, Aleksa Rakic. Did you investigate that incident, specifically?

     Madam Chair, may I ask for clarification? I was not able to understand the first part of the translation. Could I ask that it be repeated, please?

    Yes.

    Could you please repeat, Sébastien?

    Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Ms. Armstrong, since receiving the letter, did you change anything affecting everyday activities and your relationship with the athletes?

    Thank you, and I apologize.

    We are not aware of the athletes who are involved in this particular set of allegations that are raised in the open letter, so we have had no change in our approach to athletes since that time.

    Nonetheless, did the interactions between the organization and the athletes change?

    No, there's been no change since that time. We have what we believe to be a very robust and solid relationship with all of our athletes. Our policies and procedures are transparent. They are clearly posted, and we make ourselves available for any clarification any of our athletes need.

    The athletes stated that Skate Canada leadership had not adequately handled some complaints made in the past. Do you acknowledge some responsibility in terms of what is happening at Skate Canada?

    As noted earlier in my comments, we certainly recognize that in advance of our change to our national safe sport program in 2019, our procedures and processes were not as robust as they needed to be. To the extent there are complaints that relate to a time prior to the current system, we acknowledge there were gaps. We encourage anyone who has suffered any misconduct in advance of that time to please avail themselves of the current policies and procedures. They do apply retroactively as well. We will take every action we can to rectify matters that are brought to our attention today.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Bombrys, I'd like to hear your comments about some of the complaints. In 2020, a few weeks before the Tokyo Olympics, no fewer than 37 current and former players came out publicly on social media saying they had filed a complaint with Rugby Canada to condemn psychological violence, harassment and bullying, which took place within the organization's centralizing environment for far too long.

    The subsequent internal investigation remained confidential. Why not make public the recommendations resulting from that investigation? Why did you decide to keep that information secret, knowing that, ultimately, it wouldn't be part of the solution?

    I wasn't part of the organization at that time. My understanding is that there was an independent process and conclusions were drawn, and we took action to make changes at that point. That was made public at that time. That's what I can say about that.

    Do you know whether confidentiality agreements were reached in connection with the internal investigation or complaints by rugby players? At that time, would there have been an attempt to force the victims to remain silent?

    Not to my knowledge, no.

    Excellent, and thank you. I'll stop here to ensure that Mr. Julian can exercise his right to speak and we can go vote.

    Thank you.

    Peter Julian, you have six minutes.

    Go ahead, please.

    Thanks very much, Madam Chair.

    Thank you to our witnesses for stepping forward. All three organizations have had serious allegations levied against them, so your testimony is really important to helping us move forward in terms of the recommendations we will be putting forward when we finish our report.

    Ms. McNeil, I'd like to start with you.

    You testified earlier that Sport Canada had applied conditions around funding for BCS. Can you share with us those conditions?

     They haven't been provided to us in writing at the present time. We hope to have that shortly.

    I can share—it's been shared with our athletes and our staff—that they have applied conditions to our receiving the funding, including having an executive director in place, making changes to our governance, adding board members—we're missing key members of our board of directors and we're on the hunt for a treasurer right now and for another board member—and making sure our bylaws are written and there's staff board training, which we're all undertaking currently. We're already in the process of rewriting our bylaws. Those are some of the examples they've given us.

    There will be a significant reduction in some of our funding. We will be on a probationary period for one year, whereby we want to ensure that our organization is stable from an operational perspective, that we have our governance buttoned up with respect to the bylaws and that we have an educated and functioning board, which we are already working hard at.

    They will reveal those specific guidelines to us. They've just communicated this to us personally. Dr. Norris and I had a meeting up front with them about what they were planning to do. We just met with our board on Friday, just days ago, and with the athlete group, to inform them that there is change on the horizon.

    One of the changes I will share is that our core sport status for bobsleigh has been suspended temporarily, and we have to work hard to make sure we can get that back, as well as support for some of our development athletes. It's understandable. We actually asked for more accountability. It was one of the things I did right away. I told them to make us more accountable and to hold us more accountable. We want that. We need that. We want to establish that trust. Whatever it takes to be able to do so, that's something we asked for, personally, right out of the gate. We understand that.

    It is difficult, certainly, for the athletes to understand. I can share that they worked very hard to bring in new administration, and they feel a little bit upset by potential funding cuts. It seems paradoxical to them right now that they asked for change, and then their funding is being challenged. That is something we need to work really hard to.... We've done a lot of work to build trust with the athletes—a lot of communication, a lot of time and open town halls where they could voice their concerns.

    We understand, and we're going to work together to create the most positive environment. We trust our partners' handling of this completely. We know we can work together for the best possible outcome. This is going to help us ultimately be stronger.

    You actually approached Sport Canada with the idea of imposing conditions. You've testified to reaching out to the athletes. Have you had feedback from the athletes who signed the letter that attested to a toxic culture and to a culture of fear within BCS? Have you had athletes step forward who said “we think this is moving in the right direction”?

    Yes, we have recent reports from all our athletes who have spoken to us directly or through our athlete reps. We have two active athlete reps on our board of directors, who have been instrumental in capturing the athletes' voices and in being a direct pipeline to the daily training environment. They reported that they're hopeful. They feel more confident than ever to speak their minds and to be heard, and they feel like they're being treated very sensitively and compassionately. That is no commentary on the past. It is what their experiences are right now. We feel very confident that we're building that trust. There's work to be done, and we're working as hard and as fast as we possibly can to do so.

    We have nine minutes left for the vote, Peter.

    Yes, Madam Chair.

    Ms. Armstrong, since 2016, you testified.... When Figure Skating for Change Canada came out raising their concerns at the end of April, the communication from Skate Canada was that they were unaware and that there had been no communication around the allegations. Is it the position of the organization, still, that these were not allegations that had been raised with the organization before? If so, what is the organization doing now to ensure that they're not blindsided by further allegations? How are you keeping your finger on the pulse of the athletes across the country?

     You have six seconds left to answer that question, Ms. Armstrong, so please be concise.

    Our national safe sport program encourages everyone to access our independent mechanism or Abuse-Free Sport, and we will continue to communicate that to our stakeholders across the country.

    Thank you very much.

    Thank you, Mr. Julian. Your time is up.

    I want to thank the witnesses for coming, presenting to us and having patience. I'm sorry. Votes have intervened and we cannot finish our meeting, but we got one round of questions coming through.

    The meeting is adjourned.